So, now I’m starting to think about getting a gun. Couple of questions: What’s the best bang for the buck in a home protection firearm? (pun intended). And, what is the proper way to store said firearm for safety, yet accessibility in the event of a break in?
First, the good news: Your age is such that your most important role at this point is that of example and instructor. You'll know that you're pretty good with the equipment you choose, whatever choice you choose to make, when someone else asks you this same question or something similar and hasn't the faintest clue that your experience and expertise with that hardware isn't the result of lifelong familiarity and professional training, but has been more recently acquired.
About the advice you've gotten regarding handguns: yes they're useful. Yes, you should have a good one. But no, you should probably not put all your self-defensive considerations into a single basket, even if it's a very good basket. The handgun takes considerably more effort to develop expertise with, even passable expertise, and you're working for something far above just a *passing grade."
Too, the handgunner is at a disadventage against those with superior weaponry. Accordingly, it's better to begin those considerations on at least equal terms with a potential adversary/adversaries, with the fallback plan being the use of a defensive handgun in extremis. About the only real downside here is that you won't have the firm, solid confidence of being partnered with your sole means of defense- think of a cop of the 1950s/60s with his handgun, or an infantryman with his rifle. It is sometimes said beware of the man with one gun- he very likely knows how to use it very well. It is more commonly said that you shouldn't have all your eggs in one basket.
When the carloads of federal marshals and border patrol agents raided a home in Florida a few years back they had no fear of a few- and there were more than a few- upset neighbors: the childsnatchers were wearing soft armor bulletproof vests fairly capable of resisting the effect of handgun fire; and any physical threat from the neighborhood could have been met with acidic pepperspray, pistol and submachinegun fire. Neither would counterfire from a neighborhood watch with submachineguns have been particularly effective; most are of the same caliber as the handguns that were at the scene. More rounds, a bit less concealable- no great advantage there.
Now consider that many of those in the crowd were veterans of the Brigada 2506 attack on Cuba at the Bay of Pigs on behalf of the U.S. CIA, and others were sons and nephews, grandsons and yep, daughters and granddaughters of those soldatos viejos and others, veterans of other wars as well or istead. The federalized police acting as agents of Fidel Castro's communism may not have been too concerned about a dozen or two dozen handguns in the crowd they intimiodated with their foreign-made assault weapons, but frightening properly trained and equipped riflemen would have been another matter. Even the respite of a standoff would have given a rifle-armed neighborhood time to aswesemble and double the number of potential combatants, triple it, or more. Such things have happened before, early in our country's history, and it has happened since, in McKinn County, TN. When it happens with enough frequency and effect, those who would use armed force as their personal monopoly remember for a while that it is not theirs alone- and remain at least somewhat more reasonable, at least for the time it takes them to scheme, or forget.
So my answer to your question is: the weapon you need- among others that supplant it- is the Rifle. The infantryman's tool, the Queen of Battles has been taught and learned by every soldier in service to this country during their Basic Training, and to greater degrees of skills by those who go on to other combat arms assignments. Your first tool should be a good accurate and powerful fighting rifle; it can be supplanted- not replaced- with a more concealable handgun later and its effect can be added to with the acquisition of a shotgun, which may offer a few additional options not well-covered by your particular choice of rifle. But get and learn the rifle first.
Which rifle, what kind? There are several good choices, many, in fact. But three immediate candidates come to mind.
The first is the M1 Garand rifle of the Second World War and Korean War periods. General George Pattonc called it the greatest battle implement ever devised... But his personal observation of such matters came to an end with his death in 1945, and there have been additional candidates come along since then. Nevertheless, the Garand can still be a particularly effective tool, especially in the hands of a real expert with one, and most especially against some poor goof with nothing but a handgun who thinks he is perfectly equipped to force others to do as he says. A good shot with a Garand can make a killing shot with an M1 at a half-mile, and an expert can stretch that to a kilometer or more. The National Matche competition for the service rifle is condusted at 600 yards, about six city blocks away. General Pattion's advice about the Garand still pretty much holds true in the daytime, though the rifle he so admired is a bit heavy at around 12 pounds, loaded, and holds but eight shots between reloadings- which can be accomplished within a second, with practice. It was the standard for American troops from 1936 to 1959, and if you had the responsibility and privilage of serving in the military during that period, I'd certainly reccomend that you get reacquainted with your old friend.
For a few years, from 1959 to 1967, the US Army's standard long arm was the M-14, a reworked M1 with a slightly shorter cartridge that allowed the *new* design to operate with a 20-round magazine. The loaded magazine, of course, weighed about as much as three of the Garand's eight-round clips, and took a bit longer to change. Then in '67, the Army found troops in Vietnam clamoring for the Army's M16 version of the Armalite AR-15 rifle used in small numbers by the Air Force. Thousands, hundreds of thousands were fieldedm whereupon manufacturing and ammunition shortcomings revealed weaknesses, whereupon the M16A1 version appeared. In the early 1980s, the militarys' Joint Services Small Arms Program developed the M16A2, an even heavier version of the M16A1 that when loaded approached the weight of the old WWII M1 Garand empty, but offered daytime accuracy out to around that 600-yard match distance range. Indeed, at the National Matches you'll now mostly see finely-tuned M16A2 rifles in the hands of most of the competitors. So far as the grunt soldiers are concerned, you'll more likely see the M4 carbine instead, fitted with a 14.5-inch barrel instead of the M16A2s 20-incher, helping the M4 lose a little of that weight. The range of variants from 1967 to 2011 is impressive, and again: the choice of the Amewrican military deserves strong consideration. Soldiers, Marines, Sailors and Airmen from Vietnam, Beirut, Panama, Grenada. Kuwait, Somalia, Iraq and Afghaistan have stood against our national foes with an M16/M4 in hand, and if such foes, national or personal should come your way, it would be most fitting if their intentions were forestalled at the rifle that has served the Nation as well. But there is another choice, and it's also a good one.
During the Second World War one country, one of our allies at the time, utilized more submachineguns than any other. They saw firsthand the advantages of the weapon and they saw firsthand its faults. They considered an eventual replacement for the millions of those war-wears SMGs and many of their obsolete bolt-action rifles, and in 1947 the clear winner had appeared. Submitted by a war-wounded tank sergeant named Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov and his brainchild adopted in 1947 was designated AK47. Like the American M16, it's gone through several variations and variants- and like the M16/M4, it's still in service. In 1956, a two-pound lighter that used a stamped rather than machined forging main receiver, amd around 1974 a new model with a bullet diameter more akin to that of that of the M16 was developed and fielded. There are more than a hundred million of them in the world, in those models and versions and others, as licensed and unlicensed copies and as inspiration for other designs inspired or not, which elicit the same response from a knowledgable user or observer: Hey, it's just like a Kalishnikov inside....
Russian Guards soldier or desantnik paratrooper, fanatical Islamic terrorist or unschooled Africal tribesman, the AK is so commonplace outside this country that it really is a good idea for anyone planning to go outside this country's borders to at least learn the basics of the AK's operation- and to consider owning one. It's almost certainly the most common personal weapon win the world. And it can serve you with its blessings about the same as it can any of those other users: it's reliable to the extreme, so much so that it's become the standard to which others are judged, and accordingly requires minimal maintenance, can be learned with as little as a day's informal instruction, is reasonably light and usually fairly inexpensive.
These three then. Garand, M4 or Kalishnikov. One would be the likely better or best choice for you, depending on ability, eyesight, physical condition and at least a dozen other factors. Budget is a matter that deserves thought, but of course we're talking about a tool as important as your life upon which it might depend.
Happily, there's an extensive and detailed book about the matter, going into the subject in much greater and better detail than I have here. It's called The Art of the Rifle, which I see Amazon has in hardback for around $70, or can be had in paperback *here* for a bit over $20.
It has been said more recently and in other ways, but: "No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave."
-- "Political Disquisitions", a British republican tract of 1774-1775
Let me know if I can assist you in your considerations in any way.