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It's true that this woman was on shaky grounds if she was aiming at the perpetrator making an escape. Was she?
Is it barely possible, within the range of reason, that she was aiming at the tires, hoping to shoot them out, and simply prevent an escape of these criminals? Newspaper accounts report this tactic by cops with some frequency, and I've not heard many voices oppose it. In fact, no bystanders were shot in Detroit, and so is it unreasonable to suppose that she had a safe, clear shot at the tires?
The reason why we have courts of law - and defense lawyers - is that lynch mobs are not reliable tools to discover the facts and compare them to the law.
One of the hats that I wear is a certification by the Illinois State Police as a concealed carry instructor. Many states require legal instruction as part of a mandatory curriculum to get a concealed carry license. That mandatory curriculum includes substantial instruction about defense of self, others, home, other real property, and property as well as cautions against shooting a retreating criminal under most circumstances. It is easy to jump to a conclusion that this lady didn't pay attention to that instruction (Michigan does require such instruction) and easy to prejudge her to have committed a crime by shooting at non-violent escaping criminals. But it seems just as possible on these facts that she was shooting at tires to stop an escape vehicle. That's may be a horse of a different color, and it may turn out that so long as she didn't endanger innocent lives, her attempt to do that was legally justified. Keep in mind that the value of the property stolen was probably enough to make this a felony, that the crime was a conspiracy with an escape crew, and it is easy to see that this was not merely "shoplifting" but a serious crime, punishable by prison. In Illinois, she would have been legally justified in using reasonable, nonlethal force to prevent an escape. Shooting out tires under these facts may amount to just that - reasonable nonlethal force used to prevent escape. (I recognize that it's possible that shooting at a vehicle, at least in some jurisdictions, may amount to a force applied against persons, and not just the vehicle they occupy. That's an issue of law that deserves research and may become critical in this case when it gets to court.)
Anyway, this is why we have courts to sort it out. It would be wrong to judge this lady based on the news accounts presented here. Especially wrong to now assume that she was legally wrong in her conduct and use that conclusion as some kind of proof that no citizen should be armed. If she was wrong, not justified in the use of force, so be it. It is hardly an argument to ban smoking that some smokers cause fires.
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Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice. . . Restraint in the pursuit of Justice is no virtue.
Senator Barry Goldwater, 1964
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