Hi Michelle,
To answer your question upfront; I don't know at this point in my life how I would react; I guess it would have to do with who got hurt, how and when and where the person was. I do know that we are to treat others the way that we want to be treated and to love others. Jesus turned the other cheek; so I truly would hope that I could DO as I am commanded, but, I am not that confident that my flesh would not get in the way.
All that I know is that in the past when I was only 19 yrs old and very niave and living pretty much by myself (as my room mate was hardly ever there); when I was a brand new babe in Christ (only about4 months into Christ), I was sabatoged by a professional boxer who had done something to my car engineto cause it to not work, in order to get an opportunity to give me a ride home (I did not know this at the time), but he was much older than I and he saw my vulnerability and took advantage of me in this area. He drops me off at my apt. and then pushes me into it and locks the door behind him and shoves me into my room and onto my bed; we struggled for nearly 4 hours b/c I would not let him rape me and I kept yelling out the name of Jesus outloud to help me; I never hit the guy, and He finally gave up and stopped and started to walk away. I told him that he should be ashamed of himself, but that I forgive him and that I think that he needs to ask God to forgive him too. They guy literally did repent in my living room and then walked out extremely humiliated. I had to go to work that morning, but my body was to the point of muscle failure; I get to work and I am tired and in shock and they thought that I was on drugs so they fired me! SO, NO, AT THAT TIME I DID NOT LAY A HAND ON THIS GUY, NOR DID I CALL THE POLICE B/C I WANTED GOD TO DEAL WITH HIM. Today, I am not the same person that I was, so I would probably not react so graciously; the world has toughened my heart up I think, so I would probably not let the guy off the hook this time given the same situation.
On the other hand, I have a little boy who is in Karate and he is there in order to learn how to protect himself (self defense) -(right or wrong, that is just where me and his daddy are right now) incase he is ever attacked. We teach him to not hurt anyone physically (when he's outside of his training) so, we teach him to hit another only if his life is in danger, and to hit only enought to get away. He has not murdered in his HEART when he learns strenght and protection and hitting techniques. I think it is what is in your heart that God will judge.
And then there is the other kind of situation where there is someone who is helpless to get someone away from them and so others are to taked charge in my opinion; for example, while I was working at the hospital, an elderly geriatric patient of mine was on a diet that was liquid only..well his daughter would come into his room and intentionally feed him solid foods and he inevetably choke everytime (nearly to death), so we had to ensure that everytime that she came into the room that one of the staff had to be there too. (She was trying to kill her dad so that she could get his money after he died!!!)
If someone walked into our home, my husband would not hesitate to protect me and our son at all costs. This is his heart right now.
ALSO, THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MURDERING SOMEONE AND KILLING SOMEONE...I THINK IT IS ALL A MATTER OF THE INTENTION OF THE PERSONS' HEART AT THE TIME THAT THE EVENT OCCURED.
I had an Aunt who was trying to get attention from a man and she didn't mean to kill herself, but the gun accidentally went off!
I guess it all boils down to each persons' ability to handle dif situations and them having to answer to God for what they do with each situation.