I had to reply this one final time. Because, this came close to happening to me. My brother, a drug dealer at the time, gave me his shotgun auto loader, to protect me from gang violence and theft while I was living in the Los Angeles suburbs in the San Fernando Valley, after college as a Chemist. North Hills, just east of CSUN, was a potentially violent area. One night, in my gated Valley community, a guy broke into my restored GTA convertible Mustang, and ripped apart my dash and stole my stereo. He had defeated my alarm system, and I found small caliber bullets and a crack pipe strewn all over the back seat floor of my Mustang. Had I heard him and came out with the Shotgun, and killed him, or was myself killed, would it have been worth it? No. If this drug addict, needed my stereo so bad, he could have it. I can get a new stereo and fix my console, rather than take a life for three hundred dollars, or even a thousand dollars. I brought a new stereo and I fixed my Mustang. This was 1988-89. And, I am here today alive, and without his death on my conscience, knowing that I took a life over a car stereo. I had given back the Shotgun to my brother, and he eventually stopped selling drugs and smoking crack too. He lived for nearly three more decades before he died of cancer in 2016. I basically swore off guns. I just value life over material things, any life, even that of a desperate drug user. If someone is so desperate that they must steal things, they can have them. I value life above material possessions. I can get more things. But, I can't get another life, nor can I give back a life, over the loss of material possessions. Please forgive me, for continuing this discussion. I'm done.
