Not every jurisdiction is benevolent enough to recognize castle defense, some jurisdictions even frown on firearms being removed from storage and pointed at another human being, where upon the urban youth making the social transfer of assets, would be the lesser crime.
Keeping your family safe is the first concideration, the second is making sure the state does not have reason to toss your butt into jail for manslaughter. Alternative loads do have to be recognized.
Declan
Definitely! I say load that sucker full of If LotR Had Been Written By Someone Else!? and a few TV or movie threads and you’ll be all set. Invader would be totally helpless for hours, giving you a clean break.
But heed your own warning: Not every jurisdiction is benevolent enough to give you a pass on loading the shells with TV Tropes or Cracked links. Some nonsense about the Geneva Convention or something.
If the voltage fails, does it remain locked?
Well, I do know a little bit about jury selection and the criteria that jury selection consultants use in order to bias a jury toward a favorable verdict. This typically consists of eliminating well-educated critical thinkers who are less likely to be swayed by predictable prejudice and more likely to listen to factual evidence. I agree that giving your sob story to the judge is rarely likely to be effective in being dismissed from service unless you are eight months pregnant or are on three different types of anti-psychotic drugs; however, it doesn’t take a genius to know that if you present yourself as being a very favorable juror for one side, the other is very likely to dismiss you during voir dire. The jury then usually ends up being a dull mean of the population; people that each side believes that they can sway by appealing to emotion and prejudice, rather than intellect.
Regardless of that, going into court and pointing out that you used birdshot to defend yourself is not demonstrating anything other than tactical incompetence. It doesn’t indicate less than lethal intent, and in fact if the defendant’s point is that he didn’t use lethal force because he didn’t believe it was justified or necessary, he’s just undermined the entire rationale for using a firearm at all. A most reasonable and consistent argument is to reiterate that the defendant believed the threat to be immediate, mortal, and otherwise inescapable in that circumstance, and that he felt that there was no other option than to respond with lethal force to stop (not “kill” or “eliminate”) the threat, period. In a perfect world, a display of such force would case a perpetrator to retreat, and the reality is that this is what does occur the vast majority of the time. When that isn’t enough, the last thing you should be worried about is metering the level of lethality to appeal to twelve people who are not going to be in a dark room with your family huddled behind you while some idiot with a lack of self-preservation instinct presses forward.
Stranger
My take on home defense is this: If you’re asleep and the burglar has any skill, you won’t have time to use a weapon before he’s on you. If a burglar is making enough noise to wake you up, you probably have time to get up, get the gun out of the closet and load it from ammo you keep out of reach. If you have a loaded gun within reach of where you are sleeping, it’s very possible that you may kill your spouse coming back from taking a leak or even one of your children.
Speaking from personal experience, there is no way in hell I would keep an unlocked loaded weapon in the house with children there. I have a .12 ga in my closet. The rounds are on a high shelf. I figure that even if I can’t get it loaded fast enough, just racking the slide is going to scare the crap out of somebody long enough to allow me to do so.
I’ve lost count, but I think I’m the 1,024th guy to point out that a jumpy drug addict will probably just start blazing away at that sound. 
Everything above except for the sentence about your personal experience is just plain nonsense. Ignoring that your suppositions are not accurate, the scenario in the first paragraph paints the burglar as a ninja able to navigate an unfamiliar home with ease. The scenario in the second paragraph presumes that same ninja would be frightened by the sound of you giving up your tactical advantage. Does not reconcile.
That’s why the shotgun isn’t my “go-to” home defense weapon. It isn’t even kept in the bedroom. If I get awakened by non-cat, non-wife noises in the night, I’m grabbing the flashlight and the .357 in the nightstand. Or the 9mm hanging from the bedstead.
Not at all. I don’t sleep all that lightly, and my wife would probably only wake up if someone set off a stick of dynamite. An experienced house-breaker can enter and leave without disturbing occupants, particularly if the bedrooms are upstairs and he stays downstairs. Granted, it’s not the norm. In the second paragraph, I’m clearly talking about a bungler, not a burglar, which is the norm for most home invasions. They’re there for the snatch and run, and the news is full of instances where the invader takes off at the first sign of opposition or discovery.
No buttons on the unit. That would defeat the purpose of secret, hidden buttons.
Think jewelry store door. The door won’t open until Bob pushes a button, then you can open the door.
Now, put that button somewhere kids and creeps won’t stumble on it, or see it if they’re looking. Think remote fuel door release on a car. Push the button on the door or floor, and 10 feet away on the other side of the car - a little door opens.
I push my button, I’ve 10 seconds to get to the lock and open it, otherwise it just stays put.
Yep. Hence the backup key!
However, as Mr. Preparedness, I have a generator that kicks in when the power fails, so there’s a very short window where I’m rooting in a drawer for the key, then the lights come back on!