My nephew is safer with me then with his own mother. She would not kill under any circumstances ...even it was to kill someone who was killing her own child.
Had a similar run-in with a friend of mine about five years ago. She walked into her apartment just after it had been burglarized. She said she could still feel his "presence" in the apartment when she walked in. The cops figured he may have been going out the back door as she came in the front.
She called me up and asked what was necessary to get a gun permit. I told her that I didn't think she should get one. We got into a long arguement about it. I told her to come over on Saturday and I'd explain why.
When she got there, I took my .38spl revolver, unloaded it, handed it to her and walked across the apartment (about 30 feet away). I then told her to point the gun at me and pull the trigger. She refused, telling me it broke every bit of gun safety I'd ever taught her. I instigated an arguement with her over it. As I did so, I slowly closed the distance between myself and her. I called her every name in the book that a man should never call a woman. She still refused to point the empty gun at me and pull the trigger. Finally I reached arms length away from her. I grabbed the gun out of her hand, placed it near her head and pulled the trigger. She went ballistic. She slapped me hard enough to knock me off my feet.
I looked up from the floor and said "Nice shot. Too bad you're already DEAD. THAT is why you can't own a gun. You couldn't point a knowingly EMPTY revolver at me and pull the trigger, how the hell do you think you'd be able to actually SHOOT someone. What I just did to you is exactly what would happen, except that you'd never hear the BANG that replaced that 'click'."
She was furious with me for about three weeks. Then we got back together and found someone to properly secure her apartment. We also got her the permit for pepper spray and the proper training to use it.