Actually, if you ask a
professional burglar, they'll tell you that most don't go armed. Why? Because if they get caught, it adds time to their sentence. That's only the pro's, who look at it as a business. Home invasions by gang bangers, etc. are a whole different animal. They don't care, and they
will shoot.
Racking a shotgun seems to be the one, universal warning. Several years ago we responded to a shots fired call in a parking lot late at night. When we arrived, gunsmoke was still literally hanging in the air, and there were four carloads of people all yelling at each other. Officers tried to separate them, but these people didn't listen, and continued yelling. I pulled the Remy 870 from my car, stepped up on a wall, and loudly racked a round home. You could'a heard a pin drop after that, and we got a lot of yessir's and nosir's
. Like I said, the universal warning.