Down in south GA about 15 years ago, I was leaving a friend's house around 3am. When I stepped out into her garage to go to my car, I encountered a thief rummaging through her tools. He saw me and quickly picked up a large screwdriver. He held it up like a knife and gave me a menacing look, then he smirked and went back to stuffing his hoodie pockets. I backed up into the house and grabbed a Remington 870 that was right next to the door leading to the garage. (I sold her the shotgun about 2 weeks prior and had lectured her about keeping it by the door just moments before this happened, go figure.)
I stepped right back outside with the gun, issued the guy some pretty stern commands, and had him spread out in the driveway outside the garage. My friend called the police and three cars showed up about five minutes later. Soon as the guy saw the lights, he jumped up and bolted down the street. The police caught him pretty quickly. Apparently, he was a frequent flyer, they knew him by name. I was actually surprised how polite they were with him.
One of the officers came up to me after they put him in the car and said, "he's saying you held him at gun point, did you?" I said yes and tried to explain why. It went poorly. My friend and I were berated for at least 30 minutes, and I was threatened with arrest. If it weren't for a more-understanding supervisor showing up to calm him down, I probably would've ended up in cuffs.
The thing is you never know who's going to answer the call. Even when you're totally in the right, in a very-2nd-friendly area, the responding officer may strongly disagree with your actions, especially when it comes to something like holding a dirtbag at gun point. If I could do it over again, I would've just ordered the guy to leave.