The goal is never to confront the dangerous person and defeat them in some cathartic scene.

The goal is to remove yourself and the people you love from the reach of harm, to bring in the proper authorities early, and to make sure that if the dangerous person does something illegal, it happens in full view of a camera and lands in the hands of the law rather than in a private struggle no one can prove.

I did not prepare my house that afternoon so that I could beat Gavin.

I prepared it so that I would never have to, so that the police and the courts could do the beating for me, which is exactly what they exist to do and exactly what they are better at than any individual.