gun-safety, defense, homeI’m curious if there is a firearm that I can use for home protection, but one that would not kill one of my neighbors/others in the house if I miss. Should I just get a smaller gun and hope for the best, or is there a firearm – or perhaps bullet – that is suitable for this scenario?
Ultimately, YOU are responsible for every shot you fire. The fourth rule of firearms safety is that you should know your target and what's behind it. For example, I live in an apartment building. I know which walls I have neighbors behind, where other buildings are, and which directions I could shoot in and hit nothing but forest / Public Storage facility. If you are planning to use a handgun for home defense, you are best served planning out exactly the same thing.
That being said, something like a .38 spl Glasser Safety Slug fired out of a .38 spl / .357 mag revolver would be a practical home defense weapon, and the round is designed to fragment upon hitting drywall.
There isn’t a magical solution - you will always have to exercise care, noting where you have thin walls and potential shoot-through problems. You should avoid rifle rounds (which are more likely to overpenetrate) for sure. You might consider a shotgun with shot somewhere between a #6 and BB, or frangible rounds (Magsafe or Glaser safety slugs). I’m commenting here only in terms of over-penetration. There are many people who would argue against those selections based on terminal performance - but that’s a ‘holy war’ I’m not willing to waste time on.
The fundamental problem with this sort of thing is that any round that has enough penetration on human flesh to reliably stop an attacker will also go through multiple layers of interior walls and be dangerous to anyone on the other side. Unless you have exterior walls of brick or other masonry, the same applies to your exterior walls.
I believe the best solution is to load effective ammunition - quality JHP for handguns and buckshot for shotguns - and take accuracy, target identification, and possible over-penetration into account in your defense plan. Consider ahead of time - where in the house will you and your loved ones be, and where might an attacker come from? Can you position yourself and everyone else such that there are no innocents in the direction of the attacker? Make sure that you have lights and night-sights on your weapon so that you can identify your target at night and aim at it. See some of the other questions here for more information on how to do this, like this.
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