The best weapon for home defense is a small, pump-action, 12-guage shotgun. You don’t want to use a handgun for home defense. If you have to use it, your adrenaline will be pumping, you’ll be shaking, you will miss your target.
***Perhaps the Judge .410 is a good compromise between handheld rounds and spreading rounds. For inside use, would it have similar stopping power & chance to hit target as a shotgun? For that matter, what about a .38 with snakeshot? Where does one go to see the difference in effect?
A .410 would be better than a bullet, but I’d be concerned about its stopping power because it will have a wide pattern very soon and not much shot concentrated in that pattern.
It’s still a handgun and subject to the twitch effect that a long gun helps to minimize.
I wouldn’t trust a .38 with snake shot for the same reasons.