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Hantra,
There is a missing ingredient here: wall penetration.
Are there others in your home? In other rooms? Is your home made of concrete or brick to stop the handgun rounds? Are there others in homes withing a few hundred yards of your home that will be endangered by flying bullets?
If you need to be wary of through the wall dangers then a shotgun; perhaps 20 gauge or a 12 gauge with reduced-recoil loads will protect you and others from your misses. And there WILL be misses I suspect even at 10 yards.
With modern shotshells the lead pellets stay in a plastic shot cup for about 15 to 18 feet; then the plastic cup peels away ant the shot pellets continue on. In that first few feet, the likely distance for defense, your shot is contained in that plastic cup and is in actuality a single projectile. Although it won't penetrate a personal armor vest -- it will likely stop and maybe even kill the person from broken ribs and shock as it hits.
That shot cup however is shed beyond 20 feet at most, or if you hit a wall with it. What penetrates the first side of the wall is mostly absorbed by the second side of the wall and has little danger left, if any, beyond even the skimpiest third wall or outside wall of another home. For that reason, after having shot a lot of different loadings at different types of interior and exterior walls -- I have decided on #7/12 to #9 shot in a FAST trap and skeet load for my 12 gauge. At up to 16 feet this is effectively a slug and past that it gets safer faster than any other round and is less of a threat for through-the-wall dangers.
IF you do get the shotgun however, as has been pointed out so well by the other pros here -- you are well advised to practice considerably with it, until you are WELL skilled and at ease with it.
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Talk is cheap; Free Speech is NOT.
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