Potential Break-In Thwarted? (State College)

[psublue]

I'd like to share a disturbing experience from a few days ago. I'd also like any feedback, positive or negative, that you may have for me. This was my first experience with being in a potentially bad situation at home.

I was sitting alone in my apartment around 9 PM when I heard someone run up my outside stairs and start pounding on my door. Considering the fact that there were recently two armed robberies in town, I was a little concerned by this, perhaps more than I would have been normally. I have a doorbell that works, and anyone I know would either call first or ring the bell. I hadn't ordered any food, my roommates were both out of town, and it was way too late for FedEx or UPS to be out making deliveries. My first reaction was to grab my gun and my phone and run upstairs, since I have the basement room with only a window exit.

My front door doesn't have a peephole, so I took a look out my front window and saw a guy in jeans and a hoodie on my porch. No bag of delicious Chinese food, no backpack, no UPS uniform. At this point, I contemplated calling the police, since that's what you're "supposed" to do when something like this happens. Instead, I turned on the outside light and asked the guy who he was and what he wanted (with a few expletives thrown in). No answer, but that didn't make him leave. At that point, I quietly dropped the magazine out, noisily slammed it back in, and racked the slide. I'd like to think that's what finally scared him off. He scurried away and that was the end of it.

Consider:

• There have been at least two armed robberies in State College in the past week or so
• I was home alone
• Even the best police response would have been more than a few minutes
• I had the advantage of a locked door and a loaded gun

Should I have called the police, should I have totally ignored the situation, or did I take all the right steps? I still don't know who the guy was or what he wanted, but there was no way I was going to open the door to find out. As far as I can tell from the PA Uniform Firearms Act, I would have been completely justified in using force in this situation. (Edit: by "this situation" I mean had I either opened the door [like an idiot] or had he physically forced entry. I know I can't shoot someone for banging on my door.) I'm very glad that all it took was turning on the lights and (hopefully) making it clear that I had a gun to defend myself, but the whole thing was pretty unnerving.

Would you have reacted differently?