It’s the best alternative for this type of weapon. We don’t carry two different shotguns (one lethal and the other non-lethal)...not during an op, and at the time we didn’t carry tazers.
During times we were called up for demonstrations, an orange non-lethal shotgun was passed out (870) but other than that we always defaulted back to our Benelli.
It all comes down to training. I’d agree that it’s probably not the best idea for civilian use (mixing lethal/non lethal), but it still has merit if a user wants to put a different kind of lethal ammo on the right side.
IMO, one of the biggest advantages to a shotgun is its versatility. There’s no other gun that can shoot anything from flares, CS, bean bags, rubber stingers, breaching rds, birdshot, 00, slugs, etc... We used that to our advantage. There are a few instances where lethal force was justified, but the decision was made to bean bag the shitbird and it worked only because we carried in the manner that we did.
As a civilian I can’t think of a situation where I’d want less lethal rounds for my shotgun.
But I have heard of LE shooting someone when they meant to taser simply because their taser was too close to their duty pistol. So this mixing rounds seems like an accident waiting to happen but I’m no cop.