reconmike
If I remember correctly you were/are in the military.
Scenario:
You are expecting an intruder, have set traps and have armed yourself.
The intruder breaks in.
You go downstairs to confront them.
You are faced by a unarmed, 16 year old kid who looks like this:
You raise your gun at the kid.
He looks terrified.
He pleads with you, "I'm sorry. Please don't. Mum."
He turns to run away and is half way out of the window.
Are you really saying that you would feel threatened by this unarmed, petrified, fleeing, boy. Or that the right course of action is to shoot this kid in the back? I may be wrong, but I would have thought that military honour, and indeed the honour of any decent human being who placed value upon human life, would tell you not to pull the trigger.
With the best parenting in the world, that boy's face could be your son, my son or anyone here's son. If they did break into a stranger's house I wouldn't want them to escape justice, but I would be heart-broken and enraged if they had been cold-bloodedly killed because of it.