Yup, and common advice by well known firearms experts is not to confront intruders, but to retreat to a known location, ideally upstairs and call the police.
Only if the intruders seem like they are going to come up the stairs do you announce that you have a gun and that the police are on their way.
The purpose of the gun is not to kill the intruders. It is to deter them from approaching you and your family, and make it preferable for them to leave.
This advice is from lawyers who are looking to make your actions as legally defensible as possible. That isn't the same thing as maximizing your odds of surviving the crime.
There's a reason every professional military trains soldiers to that their knee jerk reaction to a threat should be to attack it as violently as possible (with some nuances). Taking back initiative counts for a ton in an ambush situation.
This is correct and any good conceal-carry instructor will make this clear. If your home state does not recognize some form of the "castle doctrine", you can only use deadly force if you believe you're in actual danger. If someone breaks in and you gun them down without being presented with a threat, you're most likely going to jail. Even if you live in one of these states, you'd better hope you get a sympathetic jury and rightfully so.
This is correct, guns are a last resort. They come out when your life is directly in danger, and you shoot to kill, not wound. Most scenarios, like the one I was in, are resolved without a shot being fired.
Edit: I don't believe this warrants downvoting. I'm sharing useful information that would be covered in any Concealed Carry class.
Only if the intruders seem like they are going to come up the stairs do you announce that you have a gun and that the police are on their way.
The purpose of the gun is not to kill the intruders. It is to deter them from approaching you and your family, and make it preferable for them to leave.