This week on my “Light Over Heat” YouTube channel, I address the idea that people can or should “shoot first and ask questions later.” It’s sad that I have to point out that this is garbage, but it seems I do.
It is extremely frustrating for me to see people (1) treat the Kansas City porch shooting, upstate New York driveway shooting, Austin H-E-B parking lot shooting, and Charlotte ball-in-the-yard shooting as the same kind of event, and (2) attribute the events to Stand Your Ground laws allowing people to “shoot first and ask questions later.”
This frustration led me to write a response that was published online in The Hill. This week’s Light Over Heat video addresses ideas shared in that opinion essay.
Recognizing that all of the facts of the cases are unknown to me, it APPEARS that two of the cases (Austin, Charlotte) are criminal assaults with a deadly weapon/murder and two of the cases (KC, upstate NY) are CLAIMED self-defense shootings.
If I were a betting man, I would say that — to the extent that these cases have something in common — it is that they are all four criminal acts. Time will tell.
Of course, as people rightly pointed out in response to my opinion, the Kansas City and upstate New York shooters don’t seem to be the audience for Everytown’s political rhetoric. So, they weren’t likely confused about what the law of self-defense allows because Everytown propagates the idea that Stand Your Ground laws condone shooting first and asking questions later.
I don’t know about their personal lives, political beliefs, or views of the law. But I hope they were not influenced by those in the gun culture who buy into extreme ideas that shooting anyone on your property is a good form of home defense.
As I mentioned on Gun Owners Radio shortly after I published my Hill opinion, Amazon sells signs that say: “WARNING: We shoot first and ask questions later.” So the “shoot first” problem is not just limited to critics of Stand Your Ground laws.
As I say in this week’s “Light Over Heat” video, if you have one of these signs, you should take it, shine it up real nice, turn it sideways, and shove it right . . .
. . . in the garbage where it belongs.
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Gun Curious 
Anyone that posts a sign like that is asking for trouble. That’s the kind of thing the police will notice and could be used as a part of building a case by providing evidence of intent to use deadly force without the usual elements of lawful use of deadly force.
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Asking for trouble, and sadly perhaps also looking for trouble where none exists.
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People who refrain from using force will be buried with full honors. It’s simply a matter of knowing when and why. And I’ve been in too many situations to depend on silly slogans from idiots who have never seen the elephant.
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