Congratulations. FWIW, I think you made a very good choice. Not saying it's the only very good choice.. but then, I own three 870's myself, so I'm a little partial to them. :-)<br><br>I'm assuming that these will be old enough not to have the new "lawyer-lock" safety that the newest 870's have. That being the case, somewhere down the road you might want to look into an oversize button safety for each. I'm very fond of them myself- it makes it much easier to disengage the safety with your trigger finger- you can do it without shifting grip or "hunting" for it,especially if you've forgotten the saftey and already tried to pull the trigger- but it doesn't seem to make it any easier to disengage by accident. It's my single favorite 870 mod (and there are a lot of them). They're getting harder to find, but I think I have a link somewhere...<br><br>>> As certain as one might feel, I would submit that only those of you who have been there and done that know for sure.<<<br><br>Not even most of those, I'm afraid. How each of us reacts to a crisis varies a great deal depending on the circumstances, degree of preparation or surprise, maybe just the mood you're in when it happens. I'm not sure anyone knows with certainty how they'll handle the next one.<br><br>There has been a lot of very high quality advice on this thread, but there's one small point that hasn't been mentioned, and doesn't get mentioned nearly enough in the subject of home defense with firearms. Because of the lifelong conditioning of movies and television, almost nobody- even those who have practiced at the range with hearing protection- is prepared for the noise of a firearm going off inside a small room with no hearing protection. Often people are so shocked by the sheer magnitude of the sound that they are stunned into inaction- whichever side they are on. Nor are they prepared for being largely deaf for minutes afterwards. <br><br>I don't know of any adequate way to prepare for this without risking damage to your hearing- but you should at least be aware of it. Scenes in the movies where someone lets loose a large firearm in a living room and the conversation continues, or police trade banter after firing a 44 magnum in a concrete stairwell, are dangerous fantasies.