[Glenn E. Meyer]

There are several cases of the searcher nailing a family member.

A particularly tragic one was a teenage girl who was supposed to be out. Came back earlier, hid in the closet and left the front door open.

Was going to jump out and scare Dad. He saw the door open, went in, she jumped out. COM with a 357, IIRC. She died saying: Daddy, I love you.

Saw the guy videoed - not a pretty sight.

Then there was the Louisana case of the Japanese kid who was killed because he didn't understand English and the homeowner went outside to face him. The kid was acting weird because of Holloween and in costume. The guy could have stayed outside.

There are others.

Second, I've done some home defense FOF - in one class, the burglars were skilled opponents - they easily took down the explorer defender. It is very easy to ambush the unskilled or even the skilled (if alone).

Third, even if you shoot someone righteously (but you didn't have to) there are many aftermath consequences. Police may suffer from such after even a good shoot. Saying it wouldn't affect you may be Internet bravado. Many very brave folks think it wasn't pleasant. We just finished a study of police PTSD and reviewed the lit (thanks Dave, Charlie). If you see what happens, you don't want to go through it psychologically if you didn't have to prevent grievous bodily harm.

Last, many of these discussions digress (as Pax pointed out) to a sense of outrage over turf violation and territory. So what, live through the day.