(Exodus 22:1) "If the thief be found breaking in": This speaks of a doubt (in the owner's mind) as to whether he is breaking in to steal or to kill. You say this, but perhaps the doubt is as to whether he is breaking in to steal or not to steal. Would you say that? If he (broke in) to steal of a certainty and he killed him, he would be liable (for murder), how much more so if there is a doubt as to whether he came to steal! We must thus perforce accept not the second supposition, but the first.
This Is the Torah's Foundational Statement on Defensive Force
Mekhilta Tractate Nezikin 13:1