The best home defense weapon is yourself. The tool you use is of less importance than how capable you are of using it under the circumstances. In terms of firearms, my personal choice is a Mossberg 590 12guage and a glock 9mm. The shotgun has the very serious scare factor for anyone looking down the wrong end of one, while the 9mm, for me is a much more versatile weapon. I used to use a 1911 .45, but found that by the time I went through a magazine, my accuracy was for shit. I finally decided that a 9mm with a good self defense round would create a perfectly acceptable wound channel, and I am much more likely to create one in the first place. That being said, both those stay in my safe, because I also decided that I was not really willing to kill someone, something that you really must have rationalized in advance. If you haven't than you run the serious risk of having only escalated the situation beyond your capabilities to deal with it. Deterents are the best way to deal with the home defense stiuation. Criminals look for easy targets. They avoid places with lots of light, close neighbors, or big loud dogs. A dog is the BEST deterent around. My good friends have kept their house unlocked for decades, and I can't imagine too many people with the balls to go into a house with the two dogs they have barking away. Training and strategy are the key. Are you training to shoot your intruder? Then make sure you can do that and do it well with whatever tool you decide on. Are you trying to keep them out in the first place? Dogs, lights on timers/motion detectors, thorny bushes near ground level windows, healthy relationships with your close neighbors, etc. all help avoid the situation in the first place. On top of all this, being able to use your own body to defend itself and others is extremely important. Some training in the martial arts is a good thing to have. Most altercations are not going to be a boxing match, but rather some sort of grappling stranglefest in tight confines. Some actual practice scrapping with a skilled opponent goes a long way, as does some practical knowledge of how to use common items as weapons. The common broom stick is a good facsimile of the bo staff and can be used to good effect against an armed opponent. Jujitsu has one of the best training regimines around, simply because it involves actually grappling with someone who is trying to choke your ass out, not the theoretical 'best form' practice of kata based arts. And. . . well I've been babbling enough I'll stop now. "All Generalizations Are False."
