It improves your odds, but raises the stakes. You should only raise the stakes if you care more about successfully stopping the intruder from taking your stuff,

It improves your odds, but raises the stakes. You should only raise the stakes if you care more about successfully stopping the intruder from taking your stuff, than you do about increasing the risk of death. At the end of the day we still need to look at the stats (how often do intruders hurt/kill homeowners when unprovoked?), but it still doesn't make too much sense to raise stakes for the sake of survival.