I posted a link to a story at #12 that had facts similar to what you are pointing out here and the shooter was not charged. (The shooter was a customer, not an employee, though.)
This Marine was the only person eating in a Subway shop and a robbery developed. He had his handgun the whole time, but he waited through the robbers taking the money, to see if they would leave without trying to hurt anyone. But then the robbers started herding the employees into the back and threatening them. That’s when he opened fire and killed one robber and wounded the other.
BTW, I remember seeing the grandmother of the killed robber on tv, sobbing that “he was such a good boy, why did that man kill him.”
I vaguely recall that story. I understand the position of companies who don’t want perps to act as though their clerks are armed, i.e., shoot the clerk on sight, but there is a growing sense of frustration by the general public that its rights for peaceful pursuit of happiness are being disregarded.
The “justice” system is skewing towards undeserved mercy so much that people no longer respect it. I was living in Utah many years ago when two whacked out airmen from Hill Air Force Base took over a music store (if memory serves). There were clerks and several customers there at the time. They not only murdered several of the victims, they raped, tortured and maimed them before killing some and letting others live. At least one victim, a youngster, was forced to drink caustic drain cleaner. He spent several years getting a new esophagus. Another victim had a pen kicked into his ear. A young woman was raped and forced to drink the drain cleaner before being shot to death. Those perps lived for nearly 20 years fighting the death penalty. And it seemed their main defense was they were black. (All the victims were white, by the way.)
At any rate, what seems to be therapeutic nicie-nice on the part of the “state” does little to assuage the inchoate rage in the general public. This rage is building and will someday erupt into something the “state” won’t hardly see coming. The theories behind punishment for crime include rehabilitation but also retribution, as a way of letting the victim or the survivors know the victim was valued also. We have lost the retribution part and we have jettisoned common sense from the justice system in applying mindless policies like severely limiting self-defense. It is part and parcel of why the general public no longer respects or trusts the government to do the right thing.