Do you have a problem with those terms? If it makes you feel better "stopping power" is at least half a meme these days, from all the old fudds talking about "muh stopping power" with their .45 1911s. And yeah a bullet makes a wound channel? This stuff is just as relevant of you're hunting or similar.

And no, birdshot may not stop a big person. Hurt like hell but often won't kill. I personally don't have a shotgun for home defense though, 9mm hollow points in a PCC do the job fine.

Anybody who's not an idiot wears ear protection when shooting but a few shots won't damage your ears much. But yeah a 9mm handgun is significantly less bad for these reasons. Thank the feds though, it's damn hard to get suppressors without tons of paperwork which would otherwise make this less of a problem.