I am planning on buying a hand gun or possibly a rifle or both. I have never owned a gun but shot a handful of times in my life time. Main purpose is home protection for the new home, but, I have some questions with the following considerations;
1) If I am attacked in my house, I will take a life without hesitation.
2) I have spoken to a few law enforcement friends and they have advised me on what to do inside vs. outside the house.
3) The wife may use it, but she will not take a life - at least that is what she tells me.
4) Concerned about bullets traveling through walls, in the event....
5) Should I take the whole family to the range? Boys are 13 & 10 but very mature for their age.
6) I do not understand how keeping a gun in a safe will provide protection during an emergency - the house is large and having to mess with a combination seems stupid when the time arises.
7) Should I keep multiple arms in various locations? And where should the ammo be?
Finally...
8) What type of hand gun or rifle. Maintenance?
First of all - you live in Cali!!!:ack So, as was suggested, be sure you know all the laws YOU have to follow re: guns/'defense (the crook of course needs to follow NONE:mad). Especially the laws re: having guns in a house with young kids.
IMHO, due to the Sultan of Dubai size of your home, you pbly ought to have multiple firearms secreted in the place...
at least have one in the places you all spend the most time (in my place that'd be the fam. rm, kitchen area, rec. room, and of course the bedroom area since that's were you are all night).
And you're right. There's nothing more U-S-E-L-E-S-S than an UNLOADED gun locked up in a safe. ("Time out Mr. Burglar while I go UNLOCK my gun safe in the bedroom and get my gun...and then RUN to the garage and get my ammo out of my seperate, locked, ammo safe there...and LOAD my weapon...and then run back here & shoot your sorry self." Oh, ya. THAT would work.) But, you have 2 young kids. And MOST kids (especially boys) will not be able to resist "playing" with a gun if it's accessable. So, you have a big delema that us...ah-hummm..."older" folks don't. And frankly, I don't see an easy way to deal with all eliments of that issue. But, again, the laws in your state will dictate what you can & cannot L-E-G-A-L-L-Y do in all these areas.
DEFINATELY take everybody to the range whether you think they'll ever actually use any of your guns or not. Mucho less chance of having a gun accident in your home if everybody knows what's what.
About the only ammo that won't necessarily go thru the average interior wall is birdshot...but, if your intruder is ARMED I wouldn't wanna count on that stuff 'dropping him' - especially if the full pattern doesn't hit him. Smaller caliber, light load, hollow nose hand gun ammo pbly wouldn't go thru walls either. 'Can't recall what it's called, but there IS ammo that's been designed for use by security personnel on airplanes that fragments on impact & won't go thru the plane's fuselage. So, that's an option too - if you can find the stuff.
Just speaking for my own darn self, "carry" weapon is a .45 cal Springfield Arms "XD" Compact. Ammo is Hornady 200gr +P TAP (ya. "Overkill". But then so is a TT FGT!). Mine has a tactical laser mounted...but, for normal purposes/situations that's really not necessary.
The shotgun I'm TRYING to get (but that's "back ordered " from heck to breakfast) is a Remington 870 pump, model #25077 "Express"...18" barrel. (00 buck ammo.)
The FN TPS is pbly the nastiest LOOKING shotgun you'll ever see...but the key word there is "see". At night - who's gunna? And as I recall, the FN is around $700 (who knows now post election) as opposed to $350 (ditto: post election) for the 870 above. There's a member here who just bought an FN TPS who may chime in on those.
But, as was mentioned by Gulf '- you need to pick something that feels right to you & the Mrs. Maybe get a seperate piece that feels right to your wife as well, since her hand size/grip/strength will be different than yours. (That said, S592R's advice re: pistols is pbly the best advice as far as your "experience"(?) level with them is concerned.)