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Notes -
People with non-zero levels of trust don't carry a gun with them to answer the door. If you go armed to your front door, you are expecting trouble.
To add onto ThisIsSin's explanation, consider also this video.
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Assuming you're right handed, the part of the gun your left hand holds moves. You pull it back towards your body until it stops, then push it all the way forwards (it locks in this position). It's like pumping a Super Soaker (that isn't actually why they call guns that require you do this to cycle them "pump action", but it's close enough).
Unlike rifles and handguns, it's a really bad idea to store a shotgun with a round chambered because the most prolific shotgun designs have had no provision made to prevent them from firing if dropped.
So if you're storing this kind of shotgun safely, you thus have to get a round from the magazine into the chamber, so you have to cycle the action and in doing so make "the noise".
And "the noise" is made simply because there are a bunch of large loosely-fit parts that all move back and forth when you cycle the action- it's distinctive in a way chambering a round into a rifle or pistol is not (and movies/video games exaggerate it, too).
Gun culture 2.0 takes a dim view of this sort of "negotiation", but also kind of ignores the fact that if the potential adversary hasn't started shooting yet they probably don't intend to and that the cops (in the areas where this is a more valid strategy) are for most intents and purposes non-existent until a few hours after the fact (in a way that they aren't in denser suburbs and urban areas), hence the potential usefulness for a signal that armed security is present to deter the simpler kinds of mischief.
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