I don't believe I equated property to a life. I stated that property represents a part of one's life, which is obviously less than the whole, and still believe it's right to choose a person's life over a thing. However, a person committing a crime against me negates that. When a part of a person's life is threatened, he is justified in responding with any amount of force if that is the best way to recover it. The life of the criminal, at that point, is simply out of consideration as the instigator of force against another.

a few thousand dollars worth of insured inventory in a corner store is certainly not worth killing someone over. but surely you can envision a scale of destruction where use of violence is justified. suppose for instance a group of people is rampaging through the countryside burning fields and destroying a meaningful portion of the food supply for a country. is it still wrong to do what it takes to stop these people before everyone starves?

Sure, yes I agree with your pillaging the countryside example. I would qualify that though by asserting that the pillaging army is not threatening just property but the ability of the victims to survive. So yes there is a threshold of destruction that threatens life itself, and that would probably justifiably be met with deadly force.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Looting some stores, burning down a couple police stations, and torching some police cruisers doesn't even come close to the threshold where violent retaliation is necessary. Scorched earth, mass destruction doesn't even come close to comparing to the scale of the protests going on right now. It's literally comparing war to a citizens' demonstration.