Originally Posted by Wise_A

If I killed somebody, I would very much like to be able to say that I did everything I could to avoid it--both for legal and ethical reasons. If you don't go looking for the trouble, you'll have a much better chance of being able to identify the threat and issue verbal warnings.

Happened a few years ago around here. Guy hears someone knocking around the ground floor of his house, so he calls 9-1-1, arms himself and covers the upstairs hallway to protect the bedrooms. Eventually, the intruder finds the stairs and starts climbing them.

The homeowner issues multiple warnings, but the intruder just keeps coming. As the guy reaches the top of the stairs, the homeowner opens fire and kills him.

Turns out it was a neighbor. The guy got drunk, and being it was a suburban Levittown type of place, "came home" to the wrong house. Complicating matters, the poor sod barely spoke any English.

Homeowner wasn't tried, and never had any legal issues, as it was documented that he'd done everything possible to avoid shooting the deceased.