> I still would not be willing to use such measures to
> protect myself.
It's always an individual choice.
But: it's almost never useful to ask: what if?
The video shown by shag the other day was basically a perfect scenario for self-defense: the bad guys burst into the room and immediately turned their backs on grandpa. If he had a 2x4, he probably could have bashed them in the head, too. Those guys seemed completely unaware that there were potential threats to their "plan" in the room. One guy gets the cash; the other guy points a gun at the manager.
What could possibly go wrong? :-)
On the other hand, a determined guy with his back to the wall with multiple weapons in a dark room, the element of surprise, with nothing to lose and whose goal is simply destruction ... that's practically the opposite situation, and one that even gung-ho self-defensers would have a very hard time puzzling through. He had already "succeeded" in the first few seconds: he wasn't trying to rob them, he was trying to kill as many of them as he could.
/jordan