Yeah, that just seems crazy. The OP said he wanted to feel like he had the option to escalate, but as far as I’ve seen, it’s typically the act of escalating a situation that harms a self-defense argument.
I mean, maybe you could block a thief’s exit while producing a handgun, and create a standoff until the cops arrived. That still sounds pretty reckless for something like shoplifting; getting into an altercation that results in firing a gun in a store is a risk to everyone in the vicinity. I remember when some woman shot out the tires of somebody trying to steal a ton of stuff from Home Depot—she was arrested. Both the cops and other gun owners thought that was incredibly irresponsible.
I mean, maybe you could block a thief’s exit while producing a handgun, and create a standoff until the cops arrived. That still sounds pretty reckless for something like shoplifting; getting into an altercation that results in firing a gun in a store is a risk to everyone in the vicinity. I remember when some woman shot out the tires of somebody trying to steal a ton of stuff from Home Depot—she was arrested. Both the cops and other gun owners thought that was incredibly irresponsible.