Best type of gun for home defense in the suburbs with children in the home?

For past 30+ years we kept a pair of S&W model 12-2 with 4" skinny barrel in the house for my wife. One is in the bedroom and the second one is in another easily accessable place in the house. Both revolvers are stored in a safe with electronic lock that requires pushing couple buttons in a sequence.

Both are loaded with 148gr button nose wadcutters doing 750 fps out of them. It's a very mild load and my wife shoots it well. Before you laugh at the load, let me tell you that that combo put down a very aggressive 80lb. GSD/mutt with one shot to the back of the shoulder. Second shot to the head ended his suffering.

She also has a Stevens SxS 20 gauge with the barrel cut back to 20". It's kept in the bedroom closet and hung where small children can not get to it.

BTW all my kids are older now but we taught them to shoot when they were about 5 y/o and were out hunting with dad or grandpa when they reach around 9 y/o.
 
It's really a misconception that they (shotguns) don't
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+1. At social distances the pattern of a cylinder bore shotgun is only a few inches in diameter. Only when you've got a decent round count over a lot of different training sessions will you be able to "point" and get good accuracy cold. Even then, you're really actually aiming, except your aiming device is muscle memory and your training instead of the rib on the barrel.


OP,
Avoid slow and heavy projectiles - or fast heavy ones. You'd be surprised how much wall a pistol round will punch without destabilizing. Either will go through tons of dry wall readily. Go with a .223 in 40gr - part of the reason M4 style ARs experienced massive adoption rates in the last decade with SWAT teams is that the projectiles tend to break up when hitting a barrier. In a good, mid length gas system M4 clone.

A 12 gauge loaded with some high brass turkey shot would do the trick. As for people recommending the 20 gauge, only if you're planning on the women or kids using it. Any grown man should be able to manhandle a 12 gauge unless you're shooting 3.5inch shells.

In general, long guns in a carbine length would also be best. It is not just longer sight radius that makes them more accurate than a handgun, they point a lot more naturally and rapidly due to multiple points of contact (chest/shoulder, strong hand, weak hand). In other words, even without using the sights you'll be more accurate. Your first shot will be more accurate and your follow up shots will be more accurate with less split time.

I hope there's someone else in the thread who has done training in dynamic entry, battle drill 6 or reflexive fire who will back me up on long weapons. I can't emphasize enough how much better a long weapon is in every way whenever you can have one.
 
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The common counterargument to long arms for home defense is you can't use it with one hand, which may be needed if your other hand is busy calling 911, using a flashlight (could be mounted on the gun, that's another debate), carrying a child, dragging an injured family member, grappling with an intruder, etc etc. They are also easier to maneuver around corner and through a house.

The long arm is great if you can dig in with it until the police arrive. But if you need to move about the home for any reason, I think the handgun is probably better for MOST people. Otherwise I am hiding behind the bed with the 870 until I hear sirens.
 
In addition to all the good advice mentioned, I'd also recommend the .410 shotgun. You can get effective SD loads that kick less in a handy package. It even makes a fun plinker for the family.
 
My knee jerk response was a 12ga pump but after thinking about there being kids in the home I was leaning more toward a rifle or a handgun.
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With kids in the house, why are you more concerned about the shot gun than the rifle?

It's a matter of preference.

You can't answer the door with a shotgun, but a handgun can be out of sight and quickly brought to bear.

Sometimes we address the subject as though we can only have one or the other. I have both, as do many.

A pistol may be all that's handy in some emergencies (but only if you see that it is). When we retreat to our bedroom, it may be shotgun or .223 time.
 
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Handgun

Just me of course.

My suggestion is to find a quality instructor, with a variety of handguns, both semi-auto and revolver, in various calibers.
Get the safety down pat, then find what SHE likes and shoots best.

i.e 5 shots at five yards on 1/4 sheet of typing paper.
The paper will not lie at to what platform she shoots best with what loads.

-One should have a gun they can carry 24/7/52
-Handguns work effectively for answering the door and getting to and fro structures ( be this home, work, stores...)
-Handguns are better able to keep "safe" from kids than long guns, when not carried on person.

Just how raised, what you do.

Sending best,
Steve
 
I feel like the best type of gun around kids in general is any thing that you keep safely out of their grasp. That being said I would keep a 20ga shotgun loaded with bird shot. It wont go threw a will with much force yet it will stop an intruder.
 
Interesting observation. At our last Carbine/IPDA match - I noticed that the long time practitioneers of the handgun art were as accurate on targets as the AR shooters. The ranges were short - probably within most home self defence distances.

Note this was for folks who shoot lots of handgun. Not handgun newbies as in the video test that Bart Roberts posted awhile ago.
 
I'd buy a 20 gauge single shot and have the barrel professionally cut back to 18.5 inches. Plan to offer training and practise to learn how to shoot accurately and reload quickly.

Jack

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I agree 100% with advise about firearm education(adult and children of adequate learning age), safely securing weapon, hardening home ,actual plan, practice drill, etc. When it comes to weapon choice though a serious consideration is the effect of the weapon's discharge. Have any of you shotgun proponents ever fired a 12ga indoors? When I was In V.N. the tunnel rats used .38's sent from home because .45's deafened them and the flash blinded them. I personally have a Ruger LCR .38 spl. with CT laser grips loaded w/ Glaser Security slugs, which are a h.p. filled with compressed #12 shot; does serious terminal damage, but does not ricochet or penetrate multiple walls and uses low flash powder. Light weight, easy to point in low light, manageable recoil, cheap to shoot at the range. A well known writer of a weapon review website wrote recently of this exact problem and suggested an 8 shot .22 lr. revolver for his daughter in law, because it was the only weapon she was comfortable and confident shooting. He reasoned that 8, 40gr slugs delivered accurately to the chest in several seconds was better than a weapon that was intimidating to the user ,so less less likely to be used and if so less likely to hit the target.
 
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