If he has a gun, and you take his gun(don't try this though), you can no longer touch him, even if hes in your house, because once he is unarmed(and you are armed), he is no longer a threat to you...but if hes fighting you....you can fight back till hes no longer a threat...just don't kill him..its hard to prove you were defending yourself after killing someone

If a burglar is in your home at night and presents a threat of approaching you or your family, you have the right to protect yourself. you also have the right to use any force necessary to effect an arrest. in this case, it would be a citizens arrest. even deadly force, if the situation of threat, merits it. Remember this, you do not shoot a burglar running away from you. he is no longer a threat to you or your family.

The answer to this question really depends on the jurisdiction in which this occurs. As a general rule, you are allowed to defend yourself and other with force that is at least proportional to the force used by the criminal. (It does not matter if the person is unknown or not.) If the assailant is just using his fists, then you are definitely justified in using your fists to defend yourself. You are also often justified in using somewhat disproportional force. For example, I am not much of a fighter. So, in the situation above, I would prefer to pick up either my quarter staff or my 4 lb. sledge hammer with the 16" handle to confront such an invader of my residence. Again, most jurisdictions would probably still consider these as reasonable precautions since I can't be sure if the burglar is armed. In some jurisdictions, you can even shoot a burglar and even have that considered justified. In such cases you would just need to be able to show that you had a reasonable fear for your life. Just what is considered reasonable also depends on the jurisdiction. In some jurisdictions just having a gun with which to defend yourself can get you into trouble whether you are justified or not in the way you used it. However, it is better to have to have to deal with the legal repercussions after the fact rather than not be alive because you did not have the means to defend yourself. BTW: numerous polls have shown that the thing that criminals fear most is not getting caught by the police. What they fear most is an armed public. This is because criminals prefer to pick on people who are weaker than themselves, people who can't defend themselves. The more of the population that is armed, the more likely a criminal is to find themselves to be looking down the barrel of a gun in the hand of their intended victim. This possibility does discourage criminal activities.

as far as law is considered, it varies from place to place. but speaking generally, one needs to prove before the court that the burglar really posed threat to one's life and the expression of offence was infact a from of defense that the one was compelled to excercise.circumstancial evidences play a great role in such cases.

the laws governing how much force you can use against an intruder vary state to state and country to country. from what i understand, texas has some of the most lenient laws. i don't know which state has the strictest.

Yes - for as lng as he is a threat to you or your property. But once he has stopped being a threat (e.g. he is running away) you are no longer entitled to use force.