I posted this in another thread but it works here to. I happen to think that for home defence the short barrelled coach is one of the best choices going..I believe a better choice than a handgun or pump....here's why:
Let me see f I can convince you.... I'm talking about defense in the home (hense my "from the bedroom to the kitchen" reference). I would not recomend that one carry this on his person outside the house. Rarely does self defence with a firearm involve any mag changes or more than a few shots...in this situation hits and reliability count.
Here's some stats I found on the net:
First, 95% of all gunfights occur when the opponents are within 0–21 feet of each other. Of these, 20% find that the opponents are 10 to 21 feet apart, 20% when the opponents are 5 to 10 feet from each other, and 55% of the time gunfire occurs when the combatants are within 5 feet of each other.
Second, a man with a knife can cover the distance of 21 feet in 1.5 seconds or less while the average time it takes to draw a handgun from a concealed location by a trained person is closer to 2.0 seconds.
Third, most gunfights transpire in low light or minimal light conditions and last between 3 and 5 seconds.
Fourth, during those 3 to 5 seconds of the gunfight only 3 or 4 shots will be fired on average and of those shots fired only 1 in 4 will strike either one of the combatants.
So - In the dead of night, awaking from your sleep and in terror, the ability to draw, aim, and fire will be severly limited. The beauty of the coach is it's simplicity of operation and the number of pellets per shot. If you are likely to only fire a few shots in self defence I'd rather fire two shots that held sixteen projectiles, than just three or four. Also according to the above stats, if you encounter a guy in your kitchen and he is intent on doing you harm you really have only a second before he's on top of you.
Have you ever short shucked a pump shotgun? I know I have, several times, this would be disasterous in this situation....it wouldn't happen with the sawed off...also if by chance you miss the punk with your pistol, shotgun, revolver or whatever, in the ensuing struggle he could conceivably wrestle the firearm away from you, which he could then proceed to pump all the remaining rounds into your sorry carcass..this would be much less likely with a sawed off as you'll likely get both rounds off before the dude gets to you, if you miss, well, you're on your own.
Jeff Cooper - the gun guru wrote this about the double:
A lady of our acquaintance, who lives alone, has asked us what sort of instrument is best for house defense in her case. To me the answer is easy: The "Lupara," a double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun with exposed hammers and short barrels. I understand the term Lupara is Sicilian and means approximately "wolf killer." Such a piece is enormously authoritative, it is easy to use, it requires minimal training in its management, and it may be left loaded and uncocked indefinitely on the closet shelf. The only precaution is to seal the muzzles with scotch tape or cotton wool to avoid the building of nests in the barrels by little varmints.
Such items are available from Rossi and Baikal, though you may have to hunt around for them at gun shows. Usually they are very reasonable in price.
Sorry - if you really look at the data the old double may not be as cool as the pump but it will get the job done, efficiently and effectively....
