Yes, I understand.
But even by the definition and scenario you describe, I still respect life enough that I would never take one if there is any other alternative, nor would I take one over property.
So I'm a strong proponent of 'duty to retreat'.
And I've had to pull my piece out in defense of a neighbor during an early morning attack at her front door, but my mind was already conditioned that I would lead the perp away from her property rather than drop him (for a myriad of reasons). And I did (scare him off), and I never regretted it, the cops thanked me, and we all went back to bed with no one hurt, no paperwork, and no liability.
I also would add that if a gun owner cannot make clear & logical decisions in an expedient manner, they might not be suitable to be trusted with deadly force, at least in the public.
It's a huge decision to take a life, and I think it's best not done unnecessarily, and that's for everyone's sake.
You are a compassionate man and this speaks well of you.
However I do not think it is necessary to enumerate a legal demand to retreat in order to encourage armed citizens NOT to shoot unless truly necessary... available studies seem to indicate that is already the most common outcome of armed citizen vs criminal confrontations... the thug retreats and the citizen refrains from shooting.
Most decent people are reluctant to kill unless truly necessary.
The time I spent in law enforcement left its mark on me, one of which is that I have very limited compassion for career criminals, and even less for those willing to use violence to get other people's money and stuff. I've known too many of them you see. By and large they are not simply "good folks who fell on hard times", or "a good kid who got in with the wrong crowd," nor even "desperately poor people forced by circumstance to do things they wouldn't otherwise do."
Not so much, really. Mostly by the time they reach Convicted Felon status, they are hardened lawbreakers with ****-all compassion for anyone else, many of whom actually enjoy their victim's suffering and fantasize about doing worse. By the time someone goes out with a gun and "get money!" on the brain, with a willingness to threaten innocents with death to satisfy their own selfish desires, they have typically crossed a line somewhere in their soul. They're no longer a juvenile prankster or desperate little poor boy.... no. Their minds no longer work like an ordinary person's. To them, they are OWED whatever isn't nailed down and it isn't nailed down if they can pry it loose, and if you get in their way anything that happens to you is your fault and they'll have a good laugh about whatever suffering they inflicted on you... because in their mind you DESERVED it, because you dared succeed in the world of the lawful while they probably never really tried.
At that point, there is rarely any hope of redeeming them. They just get worse and worse. They get arrested several times before they get convicted, then they get probation, time served and probation, 90 days and probation, wrist-slaps until they start to think they can get away with anything. Nobody can stop them.
That's usually around the time they end up murdering someone.
Personally I'd prefer some armed citizen End them before they get to that point. I think as a society we'd be much better off if armed robbers and such were shot down in DROVES every day. Pretty soon the survivors would seek a safer occupation.
Armed robbery is no joke. Innocent people often die, even if the perp didn't necessarily set out to kill when he left the house that night.
It's a line for me. People say I'm bloodthirsty when I cheer because an armed robber or would-be rapist gets shot dead... I'm not. I'm celebrating the removal from our society of someone who'd given up their humanity already, and who will certainly harm no one else again, a thing to be happy about IMO. Would I prefer they'd seen the error of their ways, turned over a new leaf and not gone down that path? Of course I would... I just know how rarely that happens, and if they are in the commission of an act of armed robbery or attempted rape or similar, if they are shot dead they are simply reaping what they have sown.
Too many people I have loved have come to harm at the hands of such persons. Needlessly, senselessly, and avoidably.
