"Now, someone comes to your house and kills your family because someone living a couple blocks over pissed him off."
"Would you be "empathic" to the person who just killed your family?" Yes I would tell him G_d understands his error just before his execution
"Or would you be angry at the person who just killed your family?"
No anger and retribution are two different things. One is to allow the folks that dont know you that it is a bad idea to mess with you. Also be sure and kill the ahole that started the whole mess, and maybe a few family members of both then adopt their kids.
"What would you teach your future children."
Only you can protect yourself, everyone else can examine the postmortem and come to conclusions.
thanx,
bill