How will you react if you find a thief in your house?

If he attack me then I am sure I can protect myself as because I am trained in martial art - AIKIDO and have black belt. If he hurts my family then I won't spare him and I am quite serious on my words.

I had a person walk into my house in broad daylight. I was taking a nap one afternoon, and woke to see a stranger coming into the room. I was like..who the #!*^ are you?! And the person did not answer me, but turned and started walking back toward the door. I followed screaming, who are you??? The person got to the door, and I was following still. I was crazy, just having been awakened like that! I followed him outside, and a neighbor helped me to hold him until the police officer arrived. Turned out, it was a girl with mental issues. She had taken my house phone. That's all. She got off free from the courts due to her mental status, and is now in a group home where she is monitored.

Of course you want to protect your family, but you dont have to kill to do that. There are many resources to protecting someone other than murder through self-defense. Anyway, adrenaline will be there and activate when necessary, so I wont have to worry about strength. Depending on the situation, no I may not go to jail, but I will be highly questioned.

I would call the police right away.I also have a watch dog so any theif would be stupid to come in here.My dog doesn't accept strangers.I feel safe with him around.

I know the answer to this one for me would be duck because my husband is going to be shooting.. My husband is a former United States Marine and takes taking care of his family very seriously.. They better think twice before entering our house without invitation very very seriously... We also have a huge pit bull so I really don't think that will ever happen to me..lol

I will be brave enough if that will happen.I will try to relax as possible to prevent any unnecessary things that might happen.I will immediately call for the assistance of police.If he try to escapes,that is the time I will force myself to fight.

It is certain that I will get surprised if I see a thief in my house. Well if my being surprise does not alert the thief then I would alert the police as soon as possible. And if that were not possible then I would take things into my hand and try to save the people in my family. If the condition arises then I would kill that thief. Well that would be done if the thief tries to harm any of my family members. Well in my country there is law to protect innocent. If someone kills another person in self defense then that is not considered as a crime. One won't be punished for that.

As far as I know...if the trespasser is IN your home, you can knock the everloving crap outta them (which is exactly what I would do!) BUT you CAN NOT if he/she has left your home..for example you couldnt touch them if they are on your lawn or running down the street etc... Someone breaks into my house and they'd get a hardcore beating while I'm waiting for the cops to show up....

How strange to find this discussion. A few years ago I was robbed and I was remembering the time just yesterday as I went to sleep. It so happened that the thief must have heard me drive into the driveway and made good his escape through the window in a little used room. I did not notice anything amiss for a few hours. I was thinking...what if I had come into the house while he was still there...what would I have done? I think I would have been too scared to do anything, especially if I was by myself. Maybe if someone was with me, together we could scare them off but by myself I would probably leave the house and run to a neighbour. Of course the thing to do would be to call the police on a mobile phone while you drove after the crooks to see where they go. It's hard to know the best thing to do. I think the crook in my case was a kid. I was also worried in case he had a look at my stuff so he could come back later and clean me out. He only took some jewellery and a big jar of very old pennies that were not worth much as they were not in good condition.

If I can hid, I will hid, as much as I can just to protect my family. I will hide to report it to the police. And I will do with all my might to fight them silently. If me and my family will be awaken by a thief and we think we can't fight them, we will just allow them to do their thing but just for our life will not be spared. Get what they wanted, but do not hurt us. as things can be replace but not our life. If the thief will not see me, I will do everything to hurt him, but not to the fact that I will kill him. I don't want to put the law in my own hands.

I would like to think that I would defend my home and family but it seems the laws here are getting worse for the home owner and better for the criminal. There was a case of an elderly gentleman that shot a guy in the knee because the guy broke into his home and the elderly gentleman is paying to support someone that broke in his house because the guy that broke in is physically unable to walk. I think it would have been better if the elderly man would have just killed him, instead. Why should an old man have to work until the end of his life to support someone that was stealing from him?

I would definitely try to fight him to defend my family. I hear people would suddenly have super human strength when they are in a critical situation so I guess I'll have to count on that. Or maybe I can be smart and use some spray to blind im or something. In my country, as long as I'm fighting him in self-defense, I wouldn't be punished is I hurt him so that's a little comforting.

Me thinks that the answer to that depends on whether its a reaction from a guy or gal, no gender biased here but guys are usually more confrontational when in threatened circumstances,unless the guy's fear is more overpowering, gals will tend to do the more prudent thing and avoid the danger and maybe escape unnoticed to report to the cops in the safety of a neighbours house ,as for me personally,frankly,from a guys perspective, and hormones talking, i ll still react cautiously but see if i can determine whether i can take them on ,coz its my property afterall and its being threatened, i know where i stashed my baseball bats or golfclubs or for some extreme cases,swords just in case something like this happens.Seriously,i know of people, guys of course, who actually hide weapons in some place in their homes,just in case..! scary..! Not the smartest thing to do actually,confronting burglars,who knows what they are armed with and capable of,still how one reacts is very much upon the basic nature or temperament of the individual..Hide or fight!

In my country the criminals have more rights, than the law abiding citizens, but we tend to ignore all of them. If you come into my house and try to harm me or my family, i will definately hurt or kill you. They know it, so they are actully very carefull on where and when they brake in. The new trend is between 3 and 4 in the mornings, but unfortunately for them, we have patrolling security now, 24 hours and all of us have alarm systems. We live in jails already, so we are used to the idea. But we tend to hurt them bad and if they try to run away, but the securty gaurds do shoot them.

this is valuable to think about the problem.although i dont meet this problem now,actually i think that i am afraid of thing happened in my life.i think that i would shout out:siezing the thief,it is my first reaction.because i dont want this thief going out.maybe i would call a phone to police and let them sieze the thief quickly.

Well my friend! In this case, I'll make an out-roar for the people of my society to come to seize him and hand him to the law-enforcing agency.

I would protect my family at all costs. There is a self-defense law in the U.S. that allows someone to take someone else's life if they or their family is in imminent danger. I wouldn't feel good about taking someone's life, but if it is me or them, I'm going to save myself.

Hi icesmile, maybe we can just talk about this situation..because when it happen i think most people have a blank brain, i hope this thing would never happen around me, if it does, i think i will prefer to pay out some money to protect myself, but everyone will react if someone make damage to their life.

Normally at the emergency , we may not get the brain to work immediately. First of all we are not prepared to counter attack if some new entered the house. At that point of time we have to gain time to attack the thief. So, we should dodge the thief by giving the thing he wants and it should be given with little delay ( without making arguments). Also we should find the ripe time to attack him. If the thief is single and we have enough people to support. On the other hand if their number is more we can not resist. We can only give information to police , immediately after the thief left for which we should be planned . The planning should be in such a way , if the thief tieing us with rope we should be near to the door or window from where we can call upon the people for help.

Perhaps in different countries,the people who are stolen will have different reaction,and at the same time, thief in different countries will have the different reaction too. In china, most of the thief will just run after be finded.Enve if there is only a three-year-old kid in home or much money will be got soon. And to the people who are stolen wii not catch the thief or even kill him. Under the influence of Confucian thoughts,perhaps people will recept the tolerant and forgiveness! Of course ,if our family is dangerous,i will protect my family and have no choince,i will kill the thief!