The ‘holy trinity’ of American (and more properly Texan) weapons, and the minimum anyone who can legally possess should have - a home defense/civil unrest shotgun, a multipurpose rifle and a reliable handgun. You can get a Mossberg 500 pump shotgun for about $200-250, an entry level AR-15 type costs about $600-800 and a good bet-your-life-on-it-reliable automatic pistol runs about $4-500.
Which of the local ranges have you been shooting at?
You’d think the daughter of a former LEO and niece/cousin of LEOs would already have her shotgun and pistol. I’ve been to Shoot Smart. Handgun 101 with a .22 (would only kill a squirrel. Most recently fired a 9mm. If I knew how to post the image from flickr I would...not a bad first 11 rounds.
There are five guns/rifles everybody should own.
You name three: shotgun, suppression rifle (AR-15) and handgun.
Add sniper rifle (deer hunting quality rifle) and .22 rifle (quieter, small game, universal ammo).
If SHTF ammo will be the new currency. Specifically .22 cal ammo. BLOAT.