Hopefully this is the place to ask about the best home protection hand guns. If not,

[Atypical Liberal]

31. The best gun to have in a self-defense situation is a gun.

When you are confronted with violence, a gun beats no gun every time.

That said, the best gun is the one that you are most comfortable shooting. You can debate calibers and stopping power and all that jazz until you are blue in the face, but if you are afraid of the gun or if you don't know how to operate it it is all a moot point.

As I just told my in-laws who are considering buying a firearm as they are building a beach-front home in an unpopulated area known to have frequent run-ins with alligators coming up into the pilings of homes, if I had to choose one single firearm to own it would be a shotgun.

A shotgun can serve in nearly any role. You can hunt any kind of game with it, you can shoot long distance with it (up to 100 yards with slugs easily), and it will serve for home defense well also. So if I had to pick just one firearm, it would be a shotgun.

Not everyone can handle the weight of a long-arm like a shotgun. There is also something to be said for trying to navigate around corners with a barrel sticking out 18 inches or more in front of you, though its generally a bad idea to go "house clearing" during a home invasion unless you have no other choice (like us - the childrens' rooms are on the opposite side of the house from the master bedroom).

Your best bet is to go to a well-stocked indoor shooting range that has rental firearms and try out all of them. Many ranges will let you change weapons for free - if you are renting for an hour you can use any similar firearm you want over the course of an hour. So try them all. Find out what fits in your hand well and what is comfortable to operate and shoot.

Smaller-frame handguns are good for concealed carry, but being smaller and lighter they transfer more of the recoil to the shooter's hand.

Revolvers can be good in that they have no safeties to concern yourself with before using the firearm. Nor do they have to have a round chambered before they will fire. However, unless you manually cock the hammer before every shot (unlikely in a self-defense situation) this means that every shot is double-action which means a long, hard trigger pull and thus possibly decreased accuracy.

Revolvers are also typically limited to 6-8 rounds of ammunition. Many semi-automatic handguns today will hold 10, 15, or even 20 rounds of ammunition. If you are going to buy a gun for protection, all else being equal buy the one that holds the most bullets!. A gun is only useful so long as it has bullets in it. Thus it stands to reason that the more bullets it holds the longer it will remain useful should you have to use it. No one ever got to the end of a gun fight and said, "Darn, I had too many bullets!"

Overpenetration is a concern when shooting inside a building, and you should just assume that it will happen and plan accordingly. Every firearm in existence, including shotguns, will blast through normal home construction from one side of the house to the other. I suggest you go look at this web site: http://www.theboxotruth.com/ . Most internal home walls are nothing but air with 1/2" of sheetrock on either side and a few 2x4s spaced on 16" centers. Unless you get lucky and hit a 2x4, whatever you shoot will go right through your house, unless you have a brick home.

Whatever you buy, train to use the firearm. This means getting someone who knows what they are doing to teach you about firearm safety and operation. This means going to a shooting range and understanding how to use the firearm intimately. You do not want to be figuring out how to load a magazine, or how to rack the slide, or how to deactivate the safety during a crisis situation.

And if nothing else, remember these basic firearm safety rules:

1) Treat every firearm as if it were loaded.
2) Never point a firearm at anything you do not intend to destroy.
3) Never put your finger on the trigger until you intend to fire the weapon.
4) Always be certain of your target, and what is behind it.
5) Every time you pick up a weapon, check to see if it is loaded.
6) Never keep firearms or ammunition where children can get to them.