fight or negotiation

[Highlander]

This scenario is probably the best one for trying to convince people that forming a group after the shtf is the best way to go for all sorts of reasons

a group of people bent on trouble would rather go and pick on a much easier target than a group settlement,... there is far less chance of this scenario happening in the first place if you can afford to have someone on watch all the time

.... the attacker will always have the advantage, he will not want to be seen and do his best to remain concealed until the very last moment, you will not know when he is coming, and you will never be sure how many are with him

So,... there will come a time for many of us when we would get this confrontation, where we are the one who is caught by surprise, and no-one can be absolutely sure how it would go because no two meetings would be the same

So I will still stick to my first answer,.. I would assess the situation and if I thought that to talk is the better option then that is what I would do,..if not then I would prepare to fight, most of my stores would be hard to find so letting them in to see we had nothing [ and letting them take what little was left out for them] may well be the safest option, if they think they have taken all we had, they are unlikely to return again

if we lived to know that for sure would be down to many things,... but fighting out of hand, with the certain `chance` of loosing is not going to help anyone