Shotgun for me. 00 buck. And make sure they hear the chuh-chuck of the first round being chambered. It helps having creaky floors and three dogs, though. I don't think a perp would be dumb enough to try and stay in my home once he got in. Dogs go berzerk at the slightest noise.
One way to handle this is to collect shoe boxes all year. Got a dog, neighbor have a dog, gather up all the poop into plastic bags and freeze them. Come holiday times remove the frozen poop and place in the shoe boxes, wrap the boxes in holiday wrap and leave on the back seat.
When shopping lock everything bought in the trunk and do not lock the car doors. Long as the doors are open no one will break the windows to get in. Sooner or later you will find the boxes of poop gone, windows intact. Thieves will ignore the radio or most anything to get to the wrapped boxes.
This can be a family tradition most fun for the kids take bets on how long the boxes will remain in back seat, and a running log of places they were taken from.
We did this one year during a garbage strike, only way to get rid of the stuff, use your imagination in hard times. My girls thought this disgusting and pranced away until they saw the boys 7-9 having a blast ---soon they could not help get into the Evil, wicked ways and joined in. When the strike ended it was the girls that felt the worse, the youngest had a dead frog she had planned on adding to the boxes.
What fun raising 4 kids, strange how they become such straight laced people when they have their own kids.
