The wisdom of going outside to investigate a disturbance on one's property may be questioned but the legality may not.
HOWEVER, once a person decides to go out at night to investigate a disturbance/trespasser, it would be foolhardy to go unarmed.
Likewise, if the trespasser advances in a threatening manner, it would be foolish to allow him to continue to advance to the point of physical contact if one has the means to prevent it since allowing the advance ultimately provides the attacker with access to the defender's weapon.
A person who continues to advance on an armed defender is a deadly threat. Being drunk doesn't mean he's less of a threat--quite the contrary.
The penalty for not reacting properly (shooting) when someone continues to advance after they know you're armed is that you get to fight them for your gun. That's not a good situation.
In short, while the advisability (not the legality) of decision to go outside may be legitimately questioned, but other than that the homeowner acted in a very rational and completely justifiable manner.
...now we're shooting 'drunk trespassers' who get confused or agitated.
Hardly. No one's advocating shooting someone simply because their drunk, trespassing, confused and/or agitated. However, it is perfectly justifiable--and very smart to shoot a person who continues to advance on you after you've made it clear you're armed and have ordered them to stop. Big difference. You want to focus on all the circumstances but the important one. He was ordered by an armed defender not to advance, he failed to comply. THAT'S why he got shot.
Maybe he could be considered 'dangerous', I don't know. Either do you.
No, that's where you're wrong. A person who continues to advance on an armed person is very dangerous. At the least, if the advance is allowed to continue, it will turn into a wrestling match. Allowing the situation to devolve into a wrestling match with a gun involved is NOT an improvement over simply shooting the advancing attacker. Now not only the advancing person but also the defender have a good chance of being injured or killed.
VIGILANTISM leads to the destruction of civilized society, or at least what we have left of it.
Yes, that's correct. However it's an irrelevant statement. This was not vigilantism, it was a case of justifiable self-defense. The two are not at all the same.
STAY INSIDE!!!
Don't be a VIGILANTE! Join the police force if you are so inclined.
Going outside to see what's going on on one's property is not being a vigilante. One must make a call as to what they should handle and what the police should handle, but the police will NOT be happy about a person calling them every time there's a noise outside. Furthermore, the police have limited resources. If they are summoned for every bump in the night, they will not be available for the more serious cases. Unfortunately it's not possible for a person to know with 100% accuracy when it's a non-issue and when things are going to turn bad.
Sure, it's easy to say that a person should always stay inside and call the police. That's probably safest for everyone involved. But it's simply not practical for either the homeowner or for the police. Everyone can't
always take the path of least risk--it's simply not practical, it's not reasonable, it's not even possible.
It AIN'T WORTH IT unless you are really in fear of deadly force upon you or grave bodily injury.
Can you honestly tell me that if you had a gun trained on a person, told that person to stop and yet he continued to advance that you wouldn't be in fear of grave bodily injury? What do you think that person is going to do when they reach you?
Your comments about the DA are all correct. However, they're all purely hypothetical. Maybe this, could be that, perhaps this happened, sometimes that happens, he may choose this, he may want that. Why speculate? The DA says it was justified based on the evidence that he's seen and you haven't and based on the law that he knows and you apparently don't. Furthermore, nothing in the circumstances of the situation that have been made public contradict his assessment. Occam's Razor says that it's not usually productive to look for a complicated solution when there's a simple one available. The alternative is called "grasping at straws".
This is clearly a highly emotional issue with you, unfortunately that's clouded your ability to make an objective evaluation of the scenario.