aaaaa, what's your living situation like? Urban/suburban/rural? Family?
These posts talking about sound/hearing crack me up. If I'm in a position where I may need to shoot someone in defense of myself or family, that is my LAST concern. Adrenaline pumping also reduces hearing.
I thought about this recently and decided if I wanted a long gun, I'd probably go with a Beretta CX4 carbine in 9 mm. It's short enough to be handy inside, has Pic rail for a light. They make frangible ammo with shot in the tip that's designed not to penetrate as much drywall, but is still enough when it hits a person. It's expensive, something like $3-5 a round. I'd think hard about that. Can't afford to practice with it, but it would be worth having a few rounds in case of self defense.
MY living situation is a suburban house with 2 daughters and a wife. The older daughter is 16, has ADD and impulsivity issues and no common sense at all. She recently pointed a gun at me in jest immediately after I taught her the rules of safe gun handling. It was an impulse control thing and she immediately regretted it, but that made me realize I can't trust her at all.
It light of ↑ I keep a Ruger SP-101 with 38 +P hollow points for HD, but it's in a locked handgun box with the key hidden. I'm not at all sure I would wake up and get to it in time, but I'll take my odds on that before I allow the older daughter to do something stupid or maybe sneak a boy in when I'm not home who would do something stupid. I'll upgrade to one of those quick safes at some point soon to knock a few seconds off my response time.
Another practical factor for me is that I usually sleep with earplugs in, or my wife wakes me up at night. She gets up at least once every night to go potty, and when I wake up, I can't just go back to sleep like she can. I feel bad the whole next day. She gets up in the morning an hour or so before I do and wakes me up too. Being practical, I'm dead to the world and I wouldn't wake up unless she woke me up. That probably wouldn't happen either, as she sleeps with earplugs because of my snoring.
The more I think of it, the more I think I'd be better served by beefing up my home's security: auto-sensing lights w/cameras, better lock on the back door, etc. Maybe even a dog that would sleep without ear plugs, hehehe.