[TruthTellers]

Been thinking about this myself and my short answer is: whatever works best for you, except a shotgun.

As Glenn wrote above, running a pump isn't a sure thing and the movies have made it look easy. Do it under stress, when tired, or just not at 100% and you're handicapping yourself.

Semi-auto shotguns aren't my cup of tea, not reliable enough, not as capable with specialty loads or low recoil loads like pumps and break actions are. The only shotgun that I think has any potential for home defense is the KSG because of it's short length and 15 round capacity.

I think the whole "shotgun is the holy grail" concept stems from what was available way back in the early-mid 1900s for home defense. Then, you had revolvers which were slow to reload and didn't have good hollow points for, so they didn't hit hard, rifles were largely lever actions and bolt actions with long barrels and were unwieldy in the home, but shotguns were usually double barrels with a short OAL or a pump and had a definite advantage over the options at the time.

Today is different, we've got higher capacity pistols that run hollow points with no issues, rifles with 30 round mags, SBR's, braced pistols, PCC's. If you can run the handgun, I think that's a better choice because it gives you more room to move in the house and leaves a free hand to do whatever. A rifle, even with a pistol grip, is gonna be cumbersome and if you're only holding the pistol grip, an intruder can strip you of that rifle real quick.

Recently I've been thinking about bullpup rifles and the KSG and given how much less they stick out, how more of the weight will be closer to your body given the location of the bolt and magazine, they're superior choices for a long gun for home defense. Better than a pistol? IDK, I'll have to think more about that.

For a time, shotguns did have more "stopping power," yet the fact remains that no matter what effect the gun has on a target, you've got to hit that target and shotguns at short range distances, like across a room, have little to no spread, even with cylinder bore chokes. If a shotgun is all you have, imo the best addition you can put on it is a laser because inside the home, you'll pick up that laser a lot better than trying to find the front bead or lining up ghost ring sights and you'll need to actually aim the shotgun.