Bullet selection comes into play if your serious bout protection in my opinion. Me and a close buddy here in my squad were having a conversation about this just the other day. His house has been broken into 4 times in the last 2 years and just this year while home on leave he was in his restaurant and had a guy pull a gun in his restaurant. He lives and has his business in a not to nice neighborhood in Rochester. He was asking me and a few other "rednecks" about picking up a shot gun for home defense and he wants to get a AR/M4 as well. I told him well the AR may look intimidating its not the best choice we told him get his pistol permit and a mossberg 500 with the cheapest smallest shot possible. He was concerned bout collateral damage and his kids which is why I told him chill shot as its not gonna go threw the walls unless your point blank with it.
Then we got into discussion on bullet choices for hand guns. which is where most people I think are lacking in knowledge even most hunters. They make rounds both factory and components for reload that are low velocity and the bullets are made to go in and not come out or stop when they hit something and not go threw the next 3 rooms. Most people stock up on Mil surplus which is FMJ and some times has a steel core. That stuff is made to go threw armor, walls, cars you name it its not the best choice for HD unless you wanna worry bout hitting family or even your neighbors in there house. Look stuff up on youtube if your curious what does what ammo wise there are tons of guys with videos shooting into things to see what the bullet does like when the Zmax ammo came out a guy loaded up some in a 45 I think and shot it into a pair of jeans in a pool then into a dead pig wearing the same jeans. Perfect pedal of the bullet and only went in a few inches and didn't come out.
To me the plastic tipped bullets are great for HD they go in and don't come out they will do 100% more damage then FMJ or ball type ammo made for plinking and geneva convention. The plastic tipped and HD rated ammo are made to stop when they hit walls and such or some like the max line up from hornady most of them explode and disintegrate on contact with stuff that's hard even 2x4s and plywood yeah it goes threw plywood but if you ever shoot and have another piece behind it or cardboard look and see what it does its mostly just shrapnel.
