If I’m loading a shotgun for for home defense: somebody has broken into my home.
As per my comment above, how I load my shotgun is mostly based around my willingness to inflict harm on somebody who has broken into my home. If I’m trying to limit impact, bird shot is lovely. If not, just load the whole tube with buck shot or slug or similar.
But trying to pre-plan an escalation of force via the shotgun tube ordering is a fools errand.
Police have an escalation of force via visibly different tools. A suspect can see the difference between a stick and a taser and a gun. And a cop can choose to draw any of these in any order. Stacking the tube locks you into a specific sequence that you have to remember and that your assailant can’t know.
Well, the implied assumption is that you probably don't want to kill someone breaking into your house. Though given the home defense crowd...? :/
Given that a shotgun must cycle through its magazine in order (although you could eject unfired rounds), the second assumption is that by the time subsequent rounds are fired, the situation has escalated.
E.g. If you bury a load of birdshot in a wall or someone's skin and they're still threatening you, you likely want to escalate (instead of repeating same). And from the counter-point, you probably don't want your initial choice to be killing someone vs not firing.
As Dick Cheney demonstrated, catching a shotgun shell of smaller pellets usually isn't lethal, as they individually don't have enough penetration to hit vital organs. Or, same, but in sheetrock.
On the other hand, as parent argued, it's adding complexity to an already stressful situation and does make a lot of assumptions about shooter and attacker intent.
I have no intention of prowling my house like Mr Nobody chasing down invaders. To meet me and my shotgun, a burglar has to have broken into my home and also actively entered the room I’m in, after I’ve called 911 and shouted to them that I’ve done so and am armed. If they decide to still try to come see me, I’m not actively looking to kill them but I am optimizing for fastest incapacitation. I’m only qualified to make this decision for myself, but it’s about as much respect for life as seems possible in the circumstance.
As per my comment above, how I load my shotgun is mostly based around my willingness to inflict harm on somebody who has broken into my home. If I’m trying to limit impact, bird shot is lovely. If not, just load the whole tube with buck shot or slug or similar.
But trying to pre-plan an escalation of force via the shotgun tube ordering is a fools errand.
Police have an escalation of force via visibly different tools. A suspect can see the difference between a stick and a taser and a gun. And a cop can choose to draw any of these in any order. Stacking the tube locks you into a specific sequence that you have to remember and that your assailant can’t know.