30 years ago, I chased down a 'thief' in Nice France that had stolen a stranger's purse (a fellow American), when I cornered the thief, he pulled out a knife, I used my bicycle as a shield and displayed my bike pump as a weapon. He dropped the purse and ran. The woman came up and she looked through her purse, the money and passport was gone. She didn't even say 'thanks'.
Later, it occurred to me, had it been a gun instead of a knife, the last thing I would have seen was the twilight skies of the Cote d'Azur fade to black.
None of the experience was worth it unless the lesson I learned was not to risk my life for stuff. Mine or someone else's stuff. - It's just stuff.