[hopespringseternal]

First of all, get firearms training and instruction on what is legal in your location. Spend some time thinking about shooting someone, and realize that you will probably spend a lot of money, maybe everything you have on a lawyer and may still go to prison. But that is better than spending the last few hours of your life as a chew toy for a psychopath.

The whole "accidental discharge" thing is kind of a red herring. You pull the trigger, they go boom. The problem happens when people pull the trigger expecting nothing to happen. Unless you're three years old, there is no real excuse for that.

There are a lot of ways to look at this, and you will likely have to answer the question for yourself. You need to be competent with guns, and that means more than hitting a target. You need to think about possible pitfalls and dangers, which you have started doing.

If you will only be sharing your house with responsible adults, a revolver is great. Once you load it, all you do is point it and pull the trigger. .44 special would be a great round, low recoil, plenty of stopping power. Try it, if it is too much go to a .38 special. Smith&Wesson or Ruger.

If you share a house with small children, a good name brand semi-auto without a round in the chamber is pretty safe and fast to bring into action. With no round in the chamber, the fact that small children can't rack the slide means the gun is effectively unloaded as far as they are concerned. Check the effort required to rack the slide to make sure you can do it and small children can't (they might surprise you.)

For most people, Glock is probably a good bet for a semiauto, but you probably should get hands on experience with several guns before getting one. Don't go smaller than 9mm (other options for semiautos are .40 and .45), and plan to spend at least $400 and you will do ok. Stay away from small caliber cheap guns. They are unreliable and with some accidental discharge is an issue.

[cmak9]

If you will only be sharing your house with responsible adults, a revolver is great. Once you load it, all you do is point it and pull the trigger. .44 special would be a great round, low recoil, plenty of stopping power. Try it, if it is too much go to a .38 special. Smith&Wesson or Ruger. If you share a house with small children, a good name brand semi-auto without a round in the chamber is pretty safe and fast to bring into action.

With no round in the chamber, the fact that small children can't rack the slide means the gun is effectively unloaded as far as they are concerned. Check the effort required to rack the slide to make sure you can do it and small children can't (they might surprise you.)

VERY good points. Ruger SP101 and SW99 .40S&W would be my recommendations.