I have gravitated to medium- and medium-large revolvers, due to aging hands, and my right hand/wrist/arm/shoulder not always doing what my mind tells them to do. Even though my right hand can still grip firmly, if the motion is simply squeezing, in a gross-motor-skill manner, but, I can get limp-wrist malfunctions, if shooting right-handed, as if my wrist and forearm does not “understand,” and if shooting lefty, my right hand may not always “understand” how to run the slide. (The unnatural amount of curve, a.k.a. Kyphosis, in my upper spine seems to be interfering with the nerves serving my right arm and hand.)

The arthritis in my right thumb and wrist is a different matter. I have stopped shooting short-gripped handguns right-handed, to prevent a very noticeable swelling, and pain. A Glock G19’s grip is too short, a torture device. I can shoot a G19, or a 1911, without swelling or pain. The key factor seems to be a straight-backed grip, that reaches all the way to “heel bone” of my right hand.

A high bore axis is another factor that hurts my right wrist/thumb; I set aside or sold my SIGs, for that reason.

Fortunately, I am functionally ambidextrous with most handguns, actually being left-handed, but right-armed. I chose to carry “primary” on the right hip, in 1983/1984, when I was first able to legally carry, as a cadet and rookie LEO, but guns with complex triggers, like Glocks, are best fired lefty. So, if I have to transition to left-side primary carry, I can already shoot handguns lefty. It will be a matter of training to draw reflexively from 0900-1000, instead of 0200-0300.

(This post is NOT intended to all about me-me-me, but a sharing of information, that may be helpful to someone.)

Regarding long guns, well, they may be too big for a “nightstand,” but I have long favored keeping long guns handy, near where I sleep or otherwise gravitate, inside the home. It was Remington 870 pump guns, until I could no longer trust my gimpy right arm to perform the FULL-length stroke, to properly chamber the fresh shell, so, it is now Benelli M2 autoladers, or lever-action rifles made by Winchester or Browning/Miroku-chester.

My end stage handgun is a Beretta m86 .380.
I will not have to rack the slide. The grip is big enough to ease the recoil impulse and it is only a .380 so there's not that much recoil to start with.