Originally Posted by
teflondog
Out of curiosity, what would you do if a couple armed felons broke into your home at night? How would you protect your family? Call 911 and wait for the police to arrive?
I'm not being sarcastic. I'm genuinely interested to see things from another perspective.
If a couple armed felons broke into my house at night the LAST thing I want to do is shoot at them and put myself and family at risk.
I'd tell them where the money and jewelry is, and hope they get out as quickly as possible. Only after everyone's safe would I call the police.
And I'm no wuss. I'm trained enough in various martial arts and strong enough that I can readily take down most adults (I routinely put down guys from the good HS wrestling team when I was younger just to demonstrate, at their request.) It's just not a good idea to escalate a violent situation with lethal force, if you manage to kill the assailant. The legal fallout from that alone would end my career - not worth it, even during a robbery.
Giving armed felons a reason to use lethal force against you, is the stupidest idea I could think of. Most armed felons are not rational, intelligent beings who are weighing risk/benefits. They show up with guns to intimidate, but are likely easily scared (or bullied) into firing them if you shoot first. The dumbest thing to do is to give them ANY reason to fire on you with their trigger-happy fingers.