Not American, but I've really liked this one line I've heard. "Property and freedom are the past and future of a human life" People invest nontrivial amounts

Not American, but I've really liked this one line I've heard. "Property and freedom are the past and future of a human life" People invest nontrivial amounts of their life into the acquisition of property. The theft of property is a theft of that proportion of their life. All you need is a sufficient punitive multiplier to said theft, or a sufficiently valuable item stolen, before lethal force becomes an option in said moral calculus. Where I am, theft is punished severely, thus I see no need to take things into my own hands. The social contract is that the state handles such crime, and in response citizens forgo vigilantism. If repeated thefts of my property were met with no response, or a consistently ineffective response, you'd probably see a very different reaction from me.