What caliber handgun should I purchase for minimal home security?

Question

I want to know if something like a 22cal is adequate for home protection or should I get a larger caliber gun? I don't want to specifically kill someone that breaks in, just scare them.

Answer 1

If you dont plan to kill an intruder, dont even get a gun. The way I look at it, if someone breaks into my home, there will be one side to the story....MINE. Dont ever point a gun at someone unless you intend to use it....they might take it away and pistol whip you or shoot you with your own gun.

If you feel the need for a gun, get something big enough to stop someone....a .38 or .357 would be enough. I would suggest alot of practice to get used to it, and get legally licensed for it. If you have kids....follow safety guidelines and make sure the kids can NEVER get to it.

With all that being said, I would suggest a shotgun. I live in an apartment building, so if I fired a pistol, I endanger all my neighbors. A shotgun blast wont go thru so many walls. Also, assuming your house will be dark when the intruder is there, you dont have to be nearly as accurate with the shotgun and you still drop him. A 12 guage pump (the sound of pumping it would be scary enough) is the ultimate home defense system for me.

As I said before, if you dont plan on killing an intruder...dont get a gun. He can sue you if you only wound him.

Answer 2

If what you want is a simple revolver then a 357 is perfect. It will do the job. Revolvers are safe for someone who does not handle guns frequently and is simple and basic to use.

If you choose to invest in a semi-automatic then a 9mm is very nice. Size, speed and flexibility as well as availability of ammo is this calibers benefits.

Owning a gun for home defense is a big responsibility and as such you must be willing to use it. That means that just scaring is not usually an option. If you are confronted you have seconds to make a decision. A 22 will simply not do. The key is immediately stopping an intruder. You have to couple the ability to stop with ease of use. Both calibers I mention give you that ability. Additionally, they are very popular and you can usually get one without setting you back to much. Expect to pay at least $300-350 for a good 357, and at least $450 for the 9mm.

Good luck and handle with care.

Answer 3

What is the minimal handgun for home security? Well, the .22 is at best a last resort, weapon of opportunity. And you think you'll just 'scare off' a determined felon who has broken into your home bent on theft and who knows what else? If your situation is so bad that you have to resort to deadly force you can't mean to 'just scare them.' Ever heard of 'civil liability?' You can be sued by someone in the wrong who has broken into your home and you've maimed him protecting what is yours. John Wayne was the only one who just shot the bad guys in the arm and he's... Dead.

Get at least a .380 auto or better yet, a .357 Magnum (which you can, if you wish, just load with .38s). Pray you never have to use it, but if you do, then it should only be in a 'you or him' situation. If it gets down to that, then pray that you survive. If the bad guy dies, well that's too bad, but he should never have put your life and well being in jeopardy.

H

Answer 4

If all you want to do is scare someone get a toy gun and paint the muzzle black so it looks real. You should change your attitude toward self-defense, and instead of wanting to scare someone your immediate goal should be to prevent them from harming you or anyone else in your home. For that I use a Glock 10mm that will blast them to hell where they belong. If you scare an intruder away the intruder will go to another house and attack there, and every time after you repel that intruder with your toy you will wonder if the person you should have killed was the one who murdered the nice old lady down the street.
And there is also the possibility that the intruder will figure out that you won't really defend yourself and he will come back and have fun getting revenge. Solve the problem instead of sending the problem down the street.
If criminals knew they would get killed there would be very few home invasions. People who know me know I will kill intruders. There's also the issue of a criminal hiring a John Edwards type lawyer and filing a lawsuit against the home owner who shot him with too small a gun. Dead criminals don't sue. Show them no mercy because they deserve none.

Answer 5

If you want to scare a robber, buy a big dog. if you pull a weapon, you must be prepared to use it, and a .22 is useless for home defense. While most crimes are stopped just by the mere presence of a gun, you have to think about the worst case scenerio. If you wound someone, they will attack you because their life is in danger. You want to use something that will kill or wound them sufficiently enough to end the engagement. In your home, I suggest a shotgun, 20 or 12 guage. #3 or #4 shot is suffient to kill, and the pellets won't penetrate two layers of drywall. it's easier to hit your target, and just the sound of a pump shotgun being racked can end most engagements without a shot being fired.

A pistol is a poor second choice because you need more training, and the adrenaline rush throws off the aim of even the best trained cops in a lot of cases, and the myth of "knockdown power" leads people to buy more handgun than they need. Rifles ar the worst, because they will readily penetrate walls, even after exiting the body of your assailant.

Answer 6

If you truly don't want to risk killing the intruder, get a taser or some other less-than-lethal method of defending yourself may be the way to go.

However, if you don't mind killing if absolutely necessary, here's my advice.

Being shot by a .22 will not necessarily scare off an intruder. Brandishing a firearm, firing a warning shot, and even shooting an intruder will sometimes deter them, sometimes it won't. Every month American Rifleman lists a bunch of newspaper articles about citizens excercising their constitutional rights to defend themselves, and I'd say more than half of them mention that the intruder doesn't leave simply because of the threat of a handgun.

Something like a .32, .38, .357, or 9mm will probably work as a more effective means of causing your intruder to flee if shot, so long as you don't get hollow points or any kind of Magnum or +P rounds. None of these rounds, in basic form, are reknowned for their ability to drop a target, but rather usually take a few shots to drop your target. Obviously if you shoot your intruder in the chest you will probably stop them, but if you go for a wounding shot these will probably work to cause your intruder to flee.

After that, you have the man-stoppers. .357 Magnum with hollow points and .45 ACP (you can get hollow points, but this doesn't need them) are pretty standard, and can be fired from reasonably sized platforms. The calibers I listed as wounders do an okay job with hollow points as well. .40S&W works ok too. I'd recommend a minimum of the .357 Magnum with jacketed hollow points, but I highly recommend getting something chambered in .45 ACP, as this will leave a bigger entry wound with standard ammunition. It can really do some damage if you bump up to hollow points or +P ammunition. These are true man-stoppers.

After that, you have the "most powerful handgun in the world" contenders. The only drawback to these is that they are heavy and quite large framed (and the majority are in revolvers, if you find that a disadvantage). This would include your .50 AE, .44 Magnum, .500S&W, .454 Cassull, and others. These WILL stop your intruder, even if that intruder is a water buffalo (for the .500S&W that is). These don't sound like what you are interested in, but these will exude a high "scare factor" that other handguns won't, simply because of their size.

One other piece of advice I can offer is to consider a shotgun. A 12 gauge, at close range, is going to defitely stop the intruder. Any shotgun at close range will, as a matter of fact, but if you bump down to say a .410 with bird shot, you could probably fire across a room and stop your target without killing him.

Now, to respond to the "guns are evil and will kill you in your sleep" crowd. I'd like to see these statistics about a suirt gun being better, and how if you own a gun it WILL be used against you. The way an attacker usually takes a firearm from the user is either a) the attacker breaks into your home at night and finds your firearm (in which case they could just as easily get a knife from your kitchen and kill you) or b) the user draws the firearm without the willingness to kill.

You need to think long and hard before owning a firearm, especially one used in self-defense. You can always attempt to scare off your intruder, or hold them at gunpoint until the police arrive, but that is not going to work 100% of the time. If you know you won't be able to not just fire, but to kill, a firearm is not for you. I suppose you could just not buy ammunition and rely on the scare tactic, but then what do you do if it doesn't work? At that point, I think you are better set with a less-than-lethal deterrant, like a taser. Check out Kimber's LifeAct products for that.

However, as Grizzly has stated below me, you should probably get serious about personal defense, and realize that we unfortunately don't live in a nice fuzzy world where the bad guys always lose to the good guys.

Answer 7

All I have to tell you is that if someone breaks into your house and threatens you he means business and if you get a gun and wave it around this may only enrage the person. What if this person is high on meth, when these people are high on the stuff they can go crazy. Just a few years ago in my home town some guy was high on the stuff and broke into a man's house and beat him to death, another person high on the stuff beat his own parents to death with a baseball bat.

So if you are faced in that situation you better be ready to use it. As for the caliber a .22 it will kill or mame a person the same as a larger caliber. Only thing with the larger caliber the more damage will be done and the bigger the hole. Either way a man is dead if you shoot him in the right spot with any caliber.

There are also many horror stories of people being woke up thinking it is a burglar and ends up shooting a loved one. Also the ONLY way you can legally shot someone who has broken into your house is if you are in immediate danger. And if the person is shot in a spot that looks like you were not in danger, because with crime scene reconstruction they will be able to find out. And if it is found out that it was not done is self defense you just went from victim to criminal.

Also you need to take a gun safety course also, I can't begin to tell you how many people have been killed by people who thought their gun was unloaded. Or the number of people killed by their own guns because they weren't ready to use it and the prepatator took the gun and used it on them. Or by a person who couldn't handle or know how to properly handle the gun. So you need to buy a gun that is not too big or awkward for you.

Another thing if you have or plan to have children this gun needs to be locked up and hidden from the hands of any child that can pick up a play gun. This is also another reason for some of the deaths of the nations children. So there is a lot of responsiblilties that goes with being a gun owner.

I have three children and they have been around guns and compound bows all their lives and they have all went through the hunter safety courses for both. We tought them the proper use of guns and the dangers of guns. And every gun I own is locked up and the key is place up where the adults know where it is.

Ok I am done preaching now. All I want you to do is be a responsible gun owner and know the dangers of owning a gun. So again if you are in that situation and there is no doubt you or your family are in danger you have just a split second to pull that trigger in some cases. Be safe.

Hope this helps

Answer 8

The best home protection gun is a shot gun with buck shot fallowed by a slug in the chamber....As 4 hand guns the 357 revolver is what I have, I know that this gun will not let me down and that the stopping power is definatly there, and the recoil is minimal just in case multipal shots are needed....Th ewhole scareing people thing is not the right idea, 99% of the time some one breaks in to a house they are armed and ""will kill ""to get what they want.....I am not going to just let some thug shot me and my family....And nor should you!!!

Answer 9

If you shot a guy in the head or spine w/ a 22 it will stop & kill him. If you hit him in the body it will bounce around & tear his a** to pieces & he will die. The problem is it doesn't have knock down power & the dude can kick ur a** before he even relizes he's been shot.................

This is a FACT, it happened right here in my backyard.......

I like nothing smaller than a 357 mag, but I'm a good shot w/my Ruger MK 2 .22 & can stop a man in his tracks with it.

The best home defence gun is a Mossberg 500 shot gun loaded with #4 buck shot. It has Close range knock down power. The #4 because there is less chance of penetrating the room next door & shooting one of your kids. It can be accuratley shot from any position, even w/ your eyes closed. Trick it out with a light and whamO........

Answer 10

Like others have said.....don't get a gun if you aren't comfortable using it. Just using a gun to scare an intruder will get you shot.

To answer your question....I prefer a 12 guage pump with buckshot for home defense.

As far as pistols go.....a .380 is a minimum, other calibers that are good for home defense..... .38/.357/9mm/.40/.45