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Originally Posted by opendoor
Most of that is far from established fact. First off, his defense never even argued that he felt he was in life threatening danger because there's no evidence of that. His defense was that he experienced a hang fire, which introduced a long delay between pulling the trigger and the bullet firing. But for that to be true, the following would've had to happen based on the trial testimony:
-he loaded 3 bullets while thinking he only loaded 2
-he pulled the trigger 3 times to fire 2 warning shots
-the 3rd bullet's firing was delayed the exact length of time it took him to walk from where he fired the shots up to the vehicle.
-despite him saying he wanted the trespassers to leave, he reached into the SUV to take their keys to prevent them from leaving
-at the exact moment he was leaning into the vehicle the gun went off while it was pointed at the passenger's head
To me that's exceedingly implausible. The fact that his lawyer tried to use a Reddit discussion as evidence of hang fire being a common occurrence says a lot about the nature of the defense. Gun experts agreed that this is a very rare event and when it does happen, the delay is quite short. To me it sounds like a Hail Mary defense.
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The PAL course itself says to wait 60 seconds to confirm that a hangfire hasnt occurred.
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If the trigger is pulled and there is no noticeable discharge, wait 60
seconds while pointing the muzzle in a safe direction. If there is no hangfire
within 60 seconds, open the action pointing away from yourself and unload the
firearm. PROVE the firearm safe to ensure there is no blockage lodged in the
barrel.
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I also dont see the rest of the items you listed to be implausible. The situation would have been tense. I could see him losing track of how many shots he loaded, how many he fired, and what was left in the gun. This is a farmer trying to protect his family not a trained law enforcement professional. Look how many police officers have trouble in tense situations. So I dont find it implausible he was under a high level of stress and didnt realize that he pulled the trigger one more time than the number of bullets that had fired.