You endanger yourself and your family only by entering a conflict in which you can lose. Taking a guy from behind before he has a chance to react, you're pretty much safe. You don't walk up to the guy, slap him in the face with a latex glove and challenge him to a duel, you shoot him before he knows what happened. You can figure out where he is and what he's doing without announcing your presence and sending a formal request for a gunfight, You can listen through walls, look for shadows, there's any number of ways you can catch him before he catches you. He's playing on your turf, you've got the advantage. And you can engage in a confrontation without going to them. As i said, my guns are located in strategically advantageous locations in the rooms i keep them, so that I would be shooting from an angle an invader wouldn't be looking as he entered the room. If you're not confident in your ability to win the confrontation, then confrontation is longer your best option. However, I'm confident that I could kill an intruder safely, so I'd likely do so.

Leaving and calling the cops isn't always a viable option. The cops don't have transporter technology yet, they have to reach your location. If they're 20 minutes out, you're on your own. (also if you're that far from cops, a security system isn't going to deter many burglars either, it just sets a time limit on their shopping spree) And you're not always going to be a in convenient place to escape. If there was a burglar in my living room, there'd be no way I could exit my home without going past him, unless I felt jumping from a 3rd story window was safer than a confrontation. If you're not confident enough in your ability to fight the criminal you're well within your rights to try the window. I'm well within mine to try the gun.

The debate isn't about whether or not hunting a criminal down is the best solution to any given crime, but whether or not that action is justified if taken.