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This may be a slightly different twist on the subject, but still valid in choosing shotgun vs. smg: when dealing with law enforcement in urban areas, one always has to consider what happens when an officer misses in an urban setting - law enforcement hit ratio is somewhere around 17%,IIRC. This is where the shotgun really excels. Shotgun pellets are spherical, one of the worst aerodynamic shapes because travel through the air generates a vacuum on the rear side. This means you get real power up front, but velocity drops off quickly. You don't get quite as good of a drop-off with slugs, but with their large frontal area compared to mass, they drop off pretty well, too. By comparison, subgun rounds and 5.56 rounds travel a LONG way, exposing innocents to risk, especially in outdoor shootings where there are no walls to slow them down. Simple geometry shows your area of risk is a circle determined by the square of the radius (that being the distance a bullet will travel in free flight before it hits ground.) Also, pump guns which are commonly issued can handle low velocity buckshot which further reduces the risk to innocents: while barricade penetration is affected, terminal effect on soft targets is not affected too much because you are not relying on velocity to expand a hollowpoint.
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