I can't be of much help because circumstances are different. I live in 'real country' area where it is implicit that everyone is 'locked and loaded' and messing with the residents is asking for some serious trouble!!! Our neighborhood is very safe anyway--15 years of living here. We are not cursed like many parts of America, especially cities are. There are some benefits to living in Red States and having a country life! At one point some potentially threatening people started renting nearby and we made sure to walk around with the rifle to show them and also did some shooting the cans noises. But they were okay people and they moved on/evicted.
Having said that, we (wife and I ) do have a rifle where barrels can be switched from a .22 to something like a 310. We keep the .22 loaded with 'snake shots' because the snakes are potentially our worst enemies but even then I'd only shoot poisonous snakes and leave the poor harmless-as-frogs black snakes alone.
Maybe get a rifle like mine--just for the show. I think it's enough visible deterrent and also much safer in the house. If you shoot someone with that you won't kill or even seriously injure anyone but, with the right bullet, could cause enough injury to incapacitate.
Or even better: Move to the country side!
@Hamartia Antidote and I would encourage that!