The advice to buy a pump shotgun is good advice. A 12 gage is probably the most versatile single gun you can buy. The Remington 870 is a great pump and can be customized with many different barrels from 18" to 30", rifle, scope or shotgun sights, smooth barrel with no choke (for shot shells and rifled slugs) or smooth with interchangeable chokes, or rifled barrel for shooting sabot slugs (but no shot shells). It can be used to hunt anything from dove or quail to grizzly (in a pinch - it's a very common guide gun in griz country). It's darned accurate with the rifled barrel, and not bad with the smooth barrel. It's great for home defense as well. An 18" barrel with BB shot shells will blow a hole the size of a dinner plat through a solid wood door at 15 feet. It can be modified with a plain pistol grip instead of a stock (an unpleasant shooting experience) or with a folding, non-folding or telescoping pistol grip shoulder stock. You can get mag extensions that allow it to hold as many as ten shells. Most of the same can be said for the Mossberg pumps as well. Just learn how to hold it to your shoulder when shooting or you will not like the outcome, shoulder-wise. Good shooting.