In my old apartment I would wake up to a hail of gun fire in the distance every morning. I lived by a police academy. 
On a side note I would like to point out while typing this post I realized I am watching Police Academy 3!
Itfire - great story. You showed restraint and intelligent thinking, that is exactly what saves lives in this type of scenerio. I’ve scoured the local paper and to date nothing about the incident. The police logs show some acticity that may be the teens that allegedly caused the ruckus the other night, but there is no way to be sure.
Well, there isn’t any drywall in my house. It’s brick and plaster. But anytime I’ve heard gunfire, it is a flurry that is over in a couple of seconds. It’s not some big movie style shoot out and is often people shooting in the air. In my experience living in DC and also Baghdad, by the time you are perceiving these kind of events, it is usually about over.
Dangit, I thought I posted a comment about penetration of a 9mm at 100 yards through plywood or particle board and drywall vs standard glass, but apparently not. Since I’m not going to dug up the articles I thought I found yesterday, I’ll just toss out the unsubstantiated comment that I would much rather face a pistol round that’s passed through an exterior wall than one that’s gone through a window. Even drywall is more likely to plug a hollowpoint and limit expansion, and when I’m on the receiving end I’m against expansion.
I’m sure I saw a guy compare a variety of pistol rounds against a standard exterior wall at 25 yards and 9mm and lower powers were stopped or so thrown out of whack that they could hardly be considered lethal. But I can’t prove it today.
It’s my understanding that a 9mm will go through one wall, into the next, into the next, and into the next etc…etc… Regular drywall that is. That is why I have a shotgun for home defense, scatter around and not penetrate a wall. Basically point and shoot. Plus, if ever needed just racking the gun can produce fear.
I shared a house with a friend once. When I wasn’t home he was in the living room and shots started going through the house. One went into a door jamb. Another went into the refrigerator . Others went through the garage and into other garages.
Turned out a biker guy got pissed at his girl friend and ran down the street shooting at her.
She came by a couple days later begging my roomie not to press charges because he really did not mean it. There was a not subtle threat made.
He was charged with discharging a firearm in the city limits.
People have been known to fall down dead at the sound of a shotgun being racked, you don’t even need to load them! 
I would tell my family to get onto the floor in the middle of the house (immediately, without trying to see where the noise is coming from) in one of the upper floors, then I would go down to the ground floor and check the doors were locked, then call the police.
We wear our guns while mowing the lawn out here.
A unloaded gun is a lousy ball bat.
We do not call 911 when the bobcat or coyote is in the hen house.
When guns go off, guns come out.
I love living at 40th and Plum.
Phlosphr did good.
Phlosphr, add me to the “you done pretty good” column.
Pretty much what tomndebb said is what I’d do. I spent most of my childhood-to-adolescence in Stockton, which even after recent efforts to clean up is still one of the most crime-ridden cities in California, and violent crime seems to have peaked the year before I left it. My dad had at least one loaded gun readily available at all times in the master bedroom. We never had to use it, but it was nice to know that it was there if we needed it.
Given my history, I might not have reacted as strongly as you did. I have been close enough to gunfire to make hugging pavement a reflexive movement, requiring absolutely no deliberation. Shots fired that far away would definitely make me react, but I probably wouldn’t be on the floor. Still, overracting in that way is better than not reacting at all.
A story about the proper storage of ammunition:
My great-aunt and uncle lived (quite some time ago) on a trading post in a remote part of the Transkei region of South Africa. There had been some trouble with the “natives” recently and a couple had been killed in thier home the previous weekend. My aunt was woken one night by the noise of someone moving around outside their house. She woke my uncle who gathered his shotgun and began trying to load it in the dark, hoping to surprise whoever it was. But he couldn’t manage to get the shells into the barrel and began to get more and more frustrated and louder and louder until he switched on the light in exasperation and found he’d been trying to load torch batteries - just marginally bigger than shotgun shells.
Fortunatly the “murderous native” turned out to be a neighbour’s cow that had got loose during the night.
Grim
I have done what you did with the addition of putting something in front of the door (I don’t really trust the little chain).
Just in passing what kind of shotgun load did you have in your gun? Birdshot? Other shot? Slugs?
I have slugs in the house, but the two times I have loaded the gun (because of nearby activities) was with birdshot.
Both times I had a rifle within reach too, but the primary security blanket was the shotgun.
I have Remington Nitro Pheasant Loads. Pretty much if anyone came bashing throught the door they were getting sprayed. I would have been 15 feet away. Ouch. With a big “O”
I would have kept watching American Idol, of course. It would take more than that to get me off the couch, ya know.
'course all my guns are already loaded, and I usually have one on my person or on the kitchen counter (which is pretty close to the living room couch) anyway. I most likely would have called the cops too, if my cell phone was nearby. But, like I said, I’m not getting off the couch to go look for it. I figure someone else will call. 
I’m a bit surprised no one has responded to my comment. I certainly don’t begrudge anyone dropping to the floor and staying out of sight, but is that a rational response or an emotional one? (I suppose it is rational inasmuch as it has very low cost even if the chances of it providing a benefit are negligible, but is cost-benefit analysis what drives the response, or just gut-level fear?)
I hear gunfire all the time, and it would never occur to me to think that a house is being shot at or that there was any need to get down or call the cops etc. I hate to say it, but between living in cities with gangs and living in the country with hunters, hearing guns is simply par for the course.
Someone mentioned BBguns, though. Are there any that actually sound like real guns? I’m a good shot with one, and none of the three I’ve ever used sounds remotely like an actual gun. They just sort of twang.