LOS ANGELES — I was working at my desk the other day, overlooking my front yard, when I saw a man walk by the window and around the corner toward the back of the house. He was in his late 20s, wearing a rumpled gray sweatshirt; I’d never seen him before.

I waited, expecting him to come back around, since there is no other way out. When, after a few minutes, he didn’t reappear, it dawned on me he could be a burglar. There had been postings on Nextdoor.com about break-ins. I looked out the back window and saw him, systematically peering into windows.

Like many Americans, my first instinct was to grab a gun. I suspect I am not the anomaly that my friends and family think I am. I am comfortable with guns. I grew up shooting targets for sport and took part in marksmanship competitions. I have also voted for Democrats in most elections, strongly support gun control and am against the death penalty. I do not think the drafters of the second amendment envisioned concealed semiautomatic weapons and hollow-point bullets in everyone’s hands.

I always figured that in a life-or-death situation, I could reason or talk my way out of it. But a few months ago, we heard about a 70-year-old woman in Orinda, a Northern California town near where I grew up, who was shot twice by armed robbers. Luckily, she survived. Why did the assailant shoot her? Because she tried to communicate with him, which interfered with his idea of how the encounter should go. So, as a last resort: a gun.