Not if you live in one of the states that disallows such suits from being filed by the deceased's family.
Is there a list of those states somewhere?
I always worry about this. I'd sorta rather be dead than in debt up to my eyeballs for the rest of my life, or spending my life in prison. I'm quite concerned with the QUALITY of my life as much as the QUANTITY. I'd rather be dead and oblivious than alive and miserable for decades and wishing I'd just taken a shot to the head. The problem would be in cases where I might be attacked and NOT die, or where someone I cared about was attacked.
I've often felt, though, that as a small, young-looking woman (I *look* barely old enough to have my driver's license, and very innocent--or perhaps you could call it "defenseless"--to boot), I probably look at self-defense a bit differently than many of the men here, judging from comments in some of the threads. I'm a bit more serious about threats--while some of the guys here could probably afford to take the "well, I'll see if he throws a punch then I'll act" stance, I can't--both because someone might be more likely to get physical sooner (thinking I don't look like I could do them much damage so they have nothing to lose) and because one punch from a guy could potentially cause me serious injury if I didn't manage to dodge out of the way--there's no way I could probably hold my own in a fistfight with even an average-sized man. I've read about scenarios here that featured a threatening stranger where the person telling the story wasn't all that concerned, but if I were in the same scenario I'd have one hand ready on my gun and the other would be dialing the police as fast as my fingers could hit the phone buttons.
I've also wondered how it would go down in court for me if I did have to defend myself. I'm thinking it might go better for me because it'd be pretty obvious to a judge and jury that I'd be stupid to try to punch out a big BG rather than use more deadly force at my disposal.
even if you spend $50,000 out of your pocket defending yourself, that is a hell of a lot cheaper than the hundreds of thousands or million or two your family will miss from you being dead and not earning a living for them anymore.
I don't support anyone but myself, so no loss there. Actually, if I were dead, my mom would be BETTER OFF financially because she'd have my life insurance money. So that's only an argument for those with families to support.
you honestly think that calling 911 and then hanging up is any better? The prosecuting attorney isn't going to ask you why you hung up, why you didn't follow the instructions of the 911 operator, why you didn't initiate CPR?
Or what if he's down, but not dead--i.e. you got him stopped and now need to run to someplace more safe? You'd need to, at least, let the 911 operator know that you're in one place, the BG is in another. And, you probably need to let them know to send an ambulance--the last thing you want in court is them saying, "if you'd SAID he needed an ambulance rather than the police calling one when they arrived, the BG would not be dead..." I wouldn't want to have to talk my way out of that one.
Another thing I keep wondering about....has there ever been anyone who's been attacked by a BG, defended themselves, and then have the BG's friends (or BG himself, if he's not dead) come after them? I mean, I imagine that wouldn't be hard to do---stuff like that must be splashed across all the papers, along with the name of the person who did the defending.
JK; I would state my name, my location, and that "someone just tried to kill me and I need help immediately. I need to put the phone down but I will leave the line open." Then I would set the open phone down and return to my two handed grip and continue keeping my attention on the BG and on looking and listening for any other potential threats. 
