So, say it’s nighttime…and you have an intruder who is geared up with infrared night-vision goggles, armed with a gun, vs. a home owner who has the same gun, but no night-vision gear. Who do you bet on?
Assuming that the following apply:
The intruder has every intention of killing the home owner, and vice versa;
Every room of the house is dark (but not *completely *dark) to begin with;
The home owner has the advantage of knowing the layout of the house;
Calling 911 from a phone will betray the home owner’s position, and the police will take up to half an hour to arrive;
There are no other people in the house;
The home owner can turn on lights (each light switch is in each room’s doorway only, you cannot turn on the living room lights from, say, the basement), but doing so will betray his position;
Intruder and home-owner are both of equal age, strength, health, size, etc.
Intruder and home owner each have only a few dozen rounds of ammunition.
ISTM that this situation yields a slight advantage to the intruder. The intruder can become accustomed to the layout of the house, eventually, through use of night-vision gear. The fight may all come down to how good the home-owner’s natural unaided night vision is. However, if the home owner chooses or manages to wait out the intruder for several hours until sunrise then that negates the night-vision advantage although that merely makes it a 50-50 fight.
A winning move for the home owner might be to somehow get close enough to the intruder to be in the same room as him, then suddenly turn on that room’s lights, thus blinding the intruder through his night-vision gear for a second or two, and in those 1-2 seconds then open fire on the intruder and kill him before the intruder has time to rip off his goggles and adapt to the room’s light.
One thing that could really tip this completely in the intruder’s favor would be the use of infrared flashlights. That could make it nearly impossible for the home owner to hide.