[djmcmath]

Legion, I'd generally agree with your logic, though I might disagree on the tools: a short AR-15 would probably be my preferred tool for house clearing. In the drills I've practiced with, I find I can acquire targets faster and more precisely with a proper rifle than I can with a hand-spoon. YMMV.

That said, clearing a house is, for most of us, a pretty foolish proposition. As I understand it from chats with professionals, clearing a building is a team job, not something a lone guy without serious training should be doing on his own in the middle of the night.

So my home invasion plan is to shelter in place, literally hiding behind the bed with a 45 and my phone. I'm off-center from the door, and I'm upstairs, in a long hallway full of doors. Woe be the poor sod who comes hunting down that hallway ill-prepared to meet an entrenched defender. The current defense weapon is a beautiful Remington 1911, but I'll be picking up an FNX-45 tomorrow. Once I get comfortable with the new spoon, I'll shift over. Maybe this is cavalier, but if I can't stop a bad guy with 15 rounds of 45 JHP from 3 yards kneeling, even in a high stress situation, I probably don't deserve to live long enough to breed anyway.

As to the shotgun myth: I had a cop buddy who one time, anecdotally, was able to successfully intimidate a couple of hoodlums into ceasing and desisting with an extremely confident approach that included racking the shotgun. Other than that, I think it's mostly just a myth. In my case, I keep the spoon loaded and chambered, so the only things a bad guy would hear are the safe popping open and the safety coming off.