hm
the mod's point is not that one should always give the intruder the benefit of doubt, but rather to use a bit of judgement when pulling the trigger. whether there are family members in the house, whether you are alone, whether you are in a defensible position, whether the guy looks like he's lost.. all these play into the situation.
an attitude of "i see a guy in my house i don't like and he doesn't obey right away, i'm going to kill him" doesn't quite work. what if he's your cousin's boyfriend that she snuck into the house at night for a vis-a-vis? or some guy drunk off his rocker that went into the wrong home because you left the front door to your apartment unlocked? and the relative whom you can't recognize right away because it's dark and you havne't got your glasses on? all three have happened to me, and while i had a gun leveled (rifle) only in the second & third (to a lesser degree) situation, i did have some sort of weapon in all three.
boy am i glad i did not drop hammers just because i the guy didn't immediately drop and give love to momma dirt.
of course, there are mitigating factors in my judgement of all three. in the first, (sneaky boyfriend) I noticed that the guy didn't look like he was there to rob the place. looked like a kid, weaker than me, and he was getting juice out of the fridge. it also mattered that i knew i could kick the crap out of him without much trouble. if he'd been 6'2 and built like a linebacker, i probably would've hightailed as quickly as possible to the nearst phone.
in the second, my mother had called me over scared by some guy who kept banging on her door. i went over to her house and in the middle of calming her down this guy walks right in. i had my rifle with me (i was 20 at the time, coudlnt' own handguns) and brought it up right quick. he started blubberring pretty soon and alhtough he sure as heck wasn't following my directions he wasn't going after me, either. there was only one way in, i could see right down the hall that there was no one hiding behind him, and unless he was an exceptionally devious and nimble fellow he wasn't about to get the drop on ME. so i told him to get the f** out, told him he was in my mother's private house (probably should have said residence). the manager had already been called and in a few minutes he and i both went over to the (as it turns out) repeat drunk's apartment where the sot pretended to have been watching tv and his daughter made up some story about how he had been there all along.
in the third, my friend from high school walked in on my STUDIO APARTMENT one night. he had happened to be in town from berkeley and he had decided to surprise me by using a key that i'd given him in the past. bear in midn that studios have only one room, so imagine waking up to see a guy in your single room, silhouetted by the dark and the hallway light outside your apartment. i have pretty lousy vision, and i yelled "whoa! stop right there!" while fumbling for the ar under the bed (a placement that i would regret years later, btw). he saw me pulling out the gun and stupidly, he figured that he would just stand there and let me realize who he was. i suppose he wanted the dramatic moment. i had the bejeesuz scared out of me by this guy who was just standing in my doorway silent and unmoving, but since wasn't doing anything i pulled back the charing handle and got out of bed. that was when i recognized the funky hair my buddy had and boy did i get mad....
the point is, don't talk about how you are going to shoot intruders in the back, guys who don't respond right away, etc.
it's bad for your tactics and very bad for everybody's public reputation. ultimately, if you feel you need to shoot first and ask questions later, keep it to yourself. but if you want to be a prudent man, may your brain be a split second faster than your finger.
