Because that requires you to be able to judge whether it's safe for you to escape or not, while under significant stress, and with the consequence of making the wrong choice being your limb or life. And then a bunch of people sitting in a comfortable room will carefully go over the evidence and your statements, and decide whether you decided correctly.

And all that solely to spare the attacker the consequences of his choices. I'd rather err on the side of the victim here - they didn't choose to be in that position, they were placed in it by actions of the attacker.

Note that this all only applies when the person defending themselves is in a position where they reasonably believe that they're in danger. It's generally not legal to defend your property with lethal force in US, if you are not endangered yourself; the sole exception is Texas.

Hrm, and yet in this discussion there are quite a few examples of people glorifying defending themselves with a weapon or lethal force. It is romanticized in the US and that's going to tip the balance on whether someone will preserve themselves or attempt to "take justice into their own hands". I think judges are in the position, and have generally proven quite able, to rule on cases where someone was legitimately uncertain if there were other options, but it's also a bit scary how glorified responding with force seems to be.

In my country of birth, there are quite a few cases where people are convinced on "excessive force used in self-defense" even in situations where they were literally being shot at. So no, it's not at all a given. I'd rather not have that possibility.

A more important question is why. We're discussing a situation with a premise that we have already firmly established that the victim was violently attacked, or had a credible threat of the same (if we haven't, then it's not self-defense by legal definition). At that point, why would you accommodate the attacker at the expense of the victim, so long as victim remains threatened (again, if they're no longer threatened, then it's legally not self-defense)?

I often hear truisms such as "every life is valuable", but that goes both ways, and there's no way to avoid judging the relative value of victim's life versus the attacker's in this situation. Since it was attacker's choices that create this contradiction in the first place, I believe that they're fully responsible for it - i.e. the victim has no obligations whatsoever to think about the attacker's safety, only about their own and that of bystanders. Which means removing the threat by the most efficient way possible, rather than the most humane towards the attacker. Once attacker is no longer a threat, then considerations of the value of their life etc are back in force, because it's no longer at the expense of danger to someone else.

If somebody tells you "your money or your life," it's pretty obvious that the safer option is to give them the money.

> If somebody tells you "your money or your life," it's pretty obvious that the safer option is to give them the money.

Safer for you, right then (unless you, you know, actually need that money, for food). Unsafe for all of their future victims, whom you have just chosen not to help. This is true for the same reason that evolution and game-ification works... Applying positive feedback to an action increases the likelihood of that action being performed again. By giving in, you choose not to stop them, and communicate to them that what they are doing is okay.

How about not trying to steal my things? I'm glad to live somewhere where I can react with over-the-top force to defend my possessions.

Because if you don't do anything, the thief will have their actions validated. That theft will no longer be an isolated, one time occurrence... It will be their new full time job. That means that they are much more likely to end up robbing someone again, be it you, a close relative, a loved one, a person who can't afford to "move on with their life", as you said. I'm trying very hard not to use the word "sheeple" here, but you haven't left me many options. If the average person protects themselves, then the group or community, on average, will be protected.

Because sometimes you only have seconds or milliseconds to decide how best to potentially save your own life and/or the lives of your family.

Sometimes "safely escaping" is not something you have the time or option to even consider.

It's simply about the human right to defend one's own life.

You mean, "If you think you can safely escape".