I know people laugh at Hi-Point [sometimes for good reason] but I shot one of their carbines in 9mm recently and I gotta say that cheap ugly thing performs decent for a basic, cheap home defense weapon. You can modify it very easily, get longer mags, comes in three different configurations [9mm, .40S&W and .45ACP] and they're cheap as fuck. Might be a decent idea for someone who's short on cash and wants something cheap to practice with before they drop 600+ on a good AR. 9mm and 40S&W don't have much recoil at all fired from a rifle, can't speak for .45ACP but I assume it's got a little kick. If you're curious as to whether Hi-Point earned their shit reputation, look up some torture tests on their weapons, it was surprising as hell to me. Overall they're nothing special, aesthetically displeasing and you might not want to rely on it long as your main defensive tool but for a practice plinker bump in the night gun, you could do worse. You could have one of those little Jimenez saturday night specials.
Also, in response to mention of the BAR, god damn what I wouldn't do to have one of those.