Hacker News Reader

Shotgun with non-lethal loads. There's a large variety of ammo they make for shotguns.

The nice thing about a shotgun is a large amount of energy is transfered into the person. Unlike a hardball bullet from a rifle that may go straight through like a hot knife through butter. There are special rounds for rifles designed to fragment and dump all the energy into the person (but these are lethal).

View on HN

Another benefit to shotguns is that when you rack them, the resulting sound will usually equate to sheer terror for most burglars—assuming that's what they're there for.

To rack or not to rack in a home defense situation is actually a somewhat debated topic. By choosing to rack, you're essentially giving up home field advantage in hopes that the intruders run. If they don't, you've just made your tactical situation far worse by announcing your position.

That said, if you're so committed to not taking life as to use less-than-lethal rounds in a shotgun (which I wouldn't recommend), you may as well rack it if confrontation is inevitable.

Some people will load non-lethal for the first 1 or 2, then mix it up with lethal loads of slugs/shot for the remaining.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com