I sympathize with your mentality, but you most certainly do not have that right. With a few very limited exceptions in Texas, in the US you have to be defending

I sympathize with your mentality, but you most certainly do not have that right. With a few very limited exceptions in Texas, in the US you have to be defending against a deadly threat. Breaking into your home with ski masks is usually seen as a deadly threat, but that doesn't apply to a flipper house when you aren't even inside. If you arrived to the house and killed them with a tire iron you would likely have been charged with murder. I strongly recommend reading The Law of Self Defense by Andrew Branca.