this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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If somebody has broken into your apartment wearing armor they're a cop or soldier and you're not shooting your way out of this one. IMO a rifle (short carbine length ideal) is better than a pistol. They're much easier to aim under adrenaline. 9mm and 5.56 can both kill someone on the other side of a wall if you miss; I'm not convinced any choice* offers meaningfully reduced overpenetration. You know your apartment's layout and a robber does not, so you shouldn't need to be rapidly spinning around or clearing rooms CQB style.
More important by far is getting a weapon light 1) so you're not shooting blind 2) so, ideally, you dazzle whoever you're pointing it at and don't have to shoot them. Mine is physically-hurts-your-eyes bright. In the extremely unlikely event of a breakin by somebody armed, I can't imagine anyone successfully aiming at me if I get the drop on them with the flashlight. In the comparatively-more-likely event of a breakin by somebody unarmed, the weapon light helps me identify that and not shoot them.
*e: including shotguns. American walls are made out of paper and chalk, and also shotgun spread is not significant at sub-apartment distances like in video games
sorry, thought you were serious when I read that last sentence. I've seen a lot of people online seriously argue that handguns, AP rounds, shotguns, etc are good for home defense (including some leftists unfortunately).
most of the time the reason people recommend things like shotguns or revolvers it's because they're simple and reliable and they're probably gonna get the job done if you do decide you need to shoot somebody. as you said, there's no gun that isn't going to go through the walls and kill the neighbor's kid, so there's not much point thinking about that when deciding what to pick.
stocking AP rounds for your "in case somebody breaks into my house in the middle of the night" gun is fucking batshit though
Either a shotgun is semiauto, in which case it's as unreliable as a rifle or worse, or it's breech loading and you get 2 shots which is not good for our adrenaline-filled, just-woke-up defender. I personally think revolvers are more finicky than ordinary semiauto pistols and I don't like the heavy trigger pulls (there's a reason why they're no longer issued as duty weapons), but there's room to differ there. More importantly, your ordinary skeet shooting shotgun or S&W 19 does not have a rail for a weapon light. Planning to use a gun in the dark without a flashlight is awful. Gotta know your target.
In general good advice starts with "use what you got", but I think the well-intentioned fudds telling people to use a shotgun or revolver are giving bad advice. If you're buying something for home defense you should buy a normal semi-auto rifle with a weapon light.
Black tip 30-06 is both legal and fun