Like any skill requiring physical coordination, pistol handling and shooting has to be practiced to be effective. Because of this consideration, it is important that you can tolerate the report and recoil of your weapon. At the absolute minimum, you ought to fire enough ammunition to be used to operating the gun. With autoloaders, it is essential to test each magazine with the ammunition you load for defense before relying on it. It may be a good idea to avoid either hand cannons or mouse-guns.
Older guns designed for that round are relatively large and tend to have little recoil.
Although .22 rimfire is often recommended and is better than nothing, it is a poor choice. While lethal, the tiny unjacketed bullets are not effective at stopping a threat quickly. If you must rely on that caliber, make absolutely certain that the ammunition you picked is reliable in your pistol and learn to shoot rapidly and accurately. Hi-res Pointing a gun at somebody is not very nice but neither is breaking into people's homes. Some would say that no material goods are worth killing somebody.