QuikSilver
As long as your only being attacked by squirrels or rabbits you'll be fine with a 10/22........
But seriously, I would rather have a 10/22 than a pointy stick......
That was my thinking when my hippie-chick roommate realized that the neighborhood we had moved into wasn't the best. She wanted me to learn her to shoot so I loaded the car with all the appropriate shoot'n irons & off we went to the country. She didn't care for the Mossberg riot gun or Stevens 311 coach gun (both 12g)& the M66 .357mag was slightly too much also but she fell in love with the Choate folding stock, Eagle 30rnd mag equipped Ruger 10-22. With some practice she was able to keep all 30 rounds on a paperplate at 'social' distances as fast as she could pull the trigger. I told her that being a .22 it doesn' have a lot of 'one shot stop' power but if she had to use it pull the trigger until the badguy goes away, reloading with the jungle clipped mag if need be. 30-60 rnds of 36grn hollowpoints would get her "NO!" across fairly well. Plus the black polymer folding stock & large mag made it look more intimidating (psychological warfare). After that she was firmly on our side, actually arguing against gun control & pro CCW with her nitwit left wing friends & her mother.