The “Expert Witness” column from Concealed Carry Magazine brings real-world self-defense stories into focus through the lens of an experienced attorney. In each installment, actual defensive gun use incidents are analyzed to uncover what happened, what decisions were made and how those choices held up legally.
These true stories of self-defense go beyond headlines. They examine the split-second decisions armed citizens face, from concealed carry encounters to home-defense situations, and explain how use-of-force laws apply in the real world.
Whether you carry a firearm for personal protection or are building your self-defense training plan, this ongoing series is designed to help you think critically, act responsibly and better prepare for the realities of defending yourself and your loved ones.
Boiling Over: Road Rage Ends Badly for Missouri Driver
The line between life and death is sometimes drawn at the oddest, most random moments. In this instance, the defender likely just wanted to buy lunch for himself and his passenger. Instead, he found himself in a firefight.
Full Throttle
On May 18, 2025, the driver of a Dodge Caravan was traveling on Grindstone Parkway in Columbia, Missouri. As he approached a traffic signal that was green for him, a blue Hyundai Elantra sped through the intersection, and the Caravan’s driver had to swerve to avoid a collision. He sounded his horn and thought no more about it. The Hyundai’s driver, on the other hand, soon pulled up behind the Caravan and followed it, his rage boiling. The distance between the near miss and where the Caravan stopped wasn’t enough for the aggrieved driver to cool down.
When the Caravan’s driver pulled into a McDonald’s, the Elantra followed closely behind. The Elantra’s driver drew a pistol, got out of the vehicle and marched up to the driver’s side window of the Caravan while yelling and brandishing the gun. In an attempt to de-escalate, the Caravan’s driver told the angry man to go back to his car. At that point, the Elantra’s driver punched the window, and the Caravan’s driver drew his own gun and fired a warning shot. The aggressor then moved to the rear of the Caravan and fired multiple rounds into the rear passenger side of the van, striking and seriously wounding the passenger.
The Caravan’s driver jumped from the vehicle without taking it out of gear, and it rolled forward until a curb stopped it. The Elantra’s driver took cover behind his car and the McDonald’s building. As the aggressor raised his firearm to shoot, the Caravan’s driver fired one shot, striking and incapacitating him. The Caravan’s driver then kicked the gun away from the Elantra driver and called 911 immediately.
Police arrived first on the scene and administered limited first aid. When the fire department arrived, officers turned the patients over to paramedics. The Caravan’s passenger and the Elantra’s driver were triaged by medics before being transported to local hospitals. The aggressor died at the hospital, and the passenger survived her injuries.
The Caravan’s driver cooperated fully with police and provided a statement explaining that the Elantra’s driver had followed him to the McDonald’s and attacked him after the incident on Grindstone Parkway. Police interviewed witnesses and obtained surveillance footage from local businesses that corroborated his account. In particular, the footage showed the aggressor pointing his weapon at the defender in the seconds before the defender shot him. Many of the dozens of witnesses interviewed did not see the entire incident.¹
Missouri Law
In Missouri, a person is entitled to use force if he or she reasonably believes it’s necessary to protect himself or herself — or another person — from the imminent use of unlawful force.² That force can be deadly force if the person reasonably believes it’s necessary to protect against death, serious physical injury or any forcible felony.³ Detectives determined that the Elantra’s driver was the initial aggressor and that he never withdrew from the encounter.
Perception vs. Reality
It likely never occurred to the aggressor that someone other than him might be armed that day in a state with both open and constitutional carry. After firing multiple shots into the van — and after being shot — the Elantra’s driver told the defender that he “didn’t mean to.” Pain and blood loss likely prompted that sudden remorse.
Several witnesses who gave statements to police ultimately provided more heat than light because many did not see the initial events and only witnessed the end of the encounter. They saw only the defender shooting the aggressor or the aggressor already on the ground. Some people who did not see how the shooting began thought the defender may have been the initial aggressor. However, the overall evidence showed that, under Missouri law, the defender was justified in using lethal force in self-defense.
The aggressor’s mother later heard privately from a witness who said that the aggressor was shot while he was lying helpless on the ground and apologizing. However, that witness didn’t see the shots being fired because she was ducking down by her wheel well. The prosecutor later heard from the mother, who wanted charges filed. The aggressor had called his mother after he was shot, and she heard — and recorded — him apologizing. The prosecutor showed the grieving mother the evidence, including video footage. The witness later admitted that she had not witnessed all of the shots being fired.
Training Gaps
The defender likely had good marksmanship training but did not understand self-defense laws very well, as he fired a warning shot in the direction of the fast-food restaurant. The risk of ricochets and unintended injury to bystanders is one of many reasons competent self-defense instructors do not recommend warning shots. They’re inadvisable because your life is either in danger or it’s not. There’s no middle ground. The defender did manage to place one shot on target, incapacitate the attacker and call the police in the aftermath.
The Boone County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office did not charge the defender.
Endnotes
(1) Ryan Shiner and Olivia Hayes, “No charges filed in May McDonald’s shooting after prosecutor says man shot in self-defense,” ABC 17, Sept. 12, 2025, ABC17News.com/news/crime/2025/09/12/prosecutor-closes-may-mcdonalds-shooting-case-claims-man-shot-in-self-defense; Olivia Hayes, “Family of man killed in road rage shooting outside McDonald’s questions Columbia Police response,” ABC 17, Dec. 11, 2025, ABC17News.com/news/columbia/2025/12/11/family-of-man-killed-in-road-rage-shooting-outside-mcdonalds-questions-columbia-police-response.
(2)Revised Statutes of Missouri, Section 563.031(1).
(3) Revised Statutes of Missouri, Section 563.031.2(1).
Buyer Beware: Foreclosed Homeowner Greets Two Men With a Shotgun
A gifted Seattle physician was forced into early retirement by multiple sclerosis, which led to a rapidly progressive neurologic condition. On a fixed income, she failed to make her mortgage payments, and her home went into foreclosure. Once the court ordered the property foreclosed, her status in the home shifted from legal resident to squatter. After the foreclosure process was completed, her home was sold at auction. Family members said she had become increasingly paranoid, delusional and disordered in her thinking. None of them realized she had firearms.
Escalation on the Porch
A local individual who buys and flips houses had purchased the home and went to the woman’s residence to serve her a civil notice to vacate. She wasn’t there. He tried emailing her, but that didn’t work either.
He sent her text messages explaining why she had to move, and she responded by accusing him of working for foreign agents. She made no attempt to vacate the property. The buyer then contacted the woman’s ex-husband. He told the buyer that his ex-wife was unstable and dangerous.
Knowing that he had to serve her with papers in order to have her vacate the premises, the buyer asked an employee to accompany him on the trip to the property so that he would have a witness to the fact that she had been properly served. He told investigators that he wanted a witness largely because the ex-husband had said she was a danger.
When they arrived at the home, the two men rang the bell and stood on the front porch. They noticed cardboard covering all of the windows, apparently intended to make it look like no one was home. There was enough uncovered glass in the front door to see inside the residence. The buyer watched as the woman came down the stairs toward the front door holding a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun.
The woman then placed the shotgun against the front window, and the buyer ducked behind a pillar while the employee left the porch and backed away toward a fence. The employee was armed — carrying a handgun in his holster — and had a concealed pistol license.
Although her family members would later tell police that she was holding the shotgun because she was scared and that she never would have fired it, the woman nevertheless opened the door while holding it. She shouted that she was going to shoot the two men. She pointed the shotgun directly at the buyer, who turned and ran away.
The employee, who had backed off the porch and was up against a padlocked fence, felt trapped. He heard her rack the shotgun as she turned the barrel toward him. He would later tell police that he had feared for his life. He drew his pistol and fired twice, the first shot hitting the woman in the chest and the second in the back as she was rotated by the force of the first gunshot. He then holstered his firearm.
The buyer called 911. Medics were dispatched. The arriving medics started CPR, but the woman was pronounced dead at the scene. The employee’s firearm was seized, and the two men were detained.1
A Different Analysis
Ordinarily, this column covers the standpoint of the defending shooter, not the person shot. Normally that’s because the shooter is defending himself or herself from violence. But here we have a woman with declining mental health holding a loaded shotgun and pointing it at two men who were just trying to deliver paperwork. Just like the men who came to serve that paperwork, she considered herself legally armed. Except the home wasn’t hers any longer, and she had no right to be there.
Even if it had been her home, she stopped being legally armed when she pointed a firearm at two men who were simply there to deliver legal documents. At that point, she became the aggressor.
Did Training Play a Role?
While media outlets have not reported anything regarding the defender’s level of training — and the defender himself has refused media interviews — it’s not known what effect training may have had on the outcome.
Clearly, the buyer and his employee did not go onto the porch looking for trouble or displaying firearms. Both backed off when they saw the woman handling the shotgun.
Certainly, the defender’s marksmanship was up to par, as he put two shots center mass on his attacker. Notably, he did not fire when the woman pointed the gun at his boss but only when the threat was directed at him and he had no safe place to flee. No information is available regarding any de-escalation measures the men may have attempted, but their retreat in the face of the shotgun was both prudent and de-escalatory. The woman’s racking of the shotgun, however, was clearly an escalation.
A Legal Shooting
We don’t know whether the retired physician actually would have shot the men. That’s not a question an investigation can answer. Nevertheless, the employee who defended himself and his boss in this encounter did not have to wait to find out if the threat was real.
Under Washington law, an assault with a gun of any kind is an aggravated assault, which is a Class A felony. In Washington state, a person is privileged to defend himself or herself against an armed aggressor threatening a felonious assault.
The law states that “no person in the state shall be placed in legal jeopardy of any kind whatsoever for protecting by any reasonable means necessary, himself or herself, his or her family, or his or her real or personal property, or for coming to the aid of another who is in imminent danger of or the victim of assault, robbery, kidnapping, arson, bur-glary, rape, murder, or any other violent crime as defined in RCW 9.94A.030.”2
The Investigation
The buyer and his employee were taken to police headquarters and interviewed separately. The handgun, which had been seized at the scene, was processed for evidence. Crime-scene investigators combed through the home, finding two 9mm pistols and a BB gun. They found two spent 9mm cases at the scene from the defender’s handgun. Investigators also discovered evidence that the woman knew the house’s new owner would be coming to give her notice to leave. The evidence indicated that she had planned to resist that measure with lethal force.
Detectives submitted the case to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, which decided that no charges would be filed against either the employee who fired the fatal shots or the buyer, who was merely another victim in the case. In a letter to Seattle police, the senior deputy prosecuting attorney agreed with detectives, stating that the shooter had a right under state law to defend himself after the retired physician pointed a loaded shotgun at him and his boss.
Endnotes
(1) Alejandra Guzman and Will Wixey, “Woman killed in West Seattle identified, was being served paperwork,” FOX 13 Seattle, Oct. 2, 2024, Fox13Seattle. com/news/woman-killed-west-seat-tle-served-paperwork; Catalina Gaitán, “Seattle killing of QAnon follower was self-defense, prosecutor finds,” The Seattle Times, Sept. 11, 2025, Seat-tleTimes.com/seattle-news/law-jus-tice/seattle-killing-of-qanon-follow-er-was-self-defense-prosecutor-finds.
(2) Revised Code of Washington 9A.16.110(1).
No Honor Among Thieves: Texas Homeowner Injured Escaping Trio of Armed Intruders
Being a home invader is a dangerous, cutthroat business. If you get shot in the act, don’t expect your accomplices to stick around. One unlucky felon found that out the hard way.
Outnumbered and Outgunned
Three men in the aforementioned line of work decided that a Fort Worth home looked ripe for the picking one Friday at around 3:15 a.m. The homeowner, a licensed massage therapist, woke to the sound of intruders breaking in. He armed himself and confronted the masked trio, exchanging fire with them.
Realizing he was outnumbered and outgunned, he wisely retreated to a back room and made a desperate escape by breaking a window and jumping through it. In doing so, the homeowner suffered severe cuts from broken glass, requiring more than 50 stitches to his legs and hands. Though he escaped without a gunshot wound, he lost a significant amount of blood from a leg injury. During his escape, he managed to call 911 to report the home invasion.
One of the home invaders who exchanged fire with him had been shot. As officers were responding to the initial 911 call about the burglary, the police received another call — this one from the wounded suspect himself. He reported that he’d been shot and requested medical assistance. Police found him on a street just north of where the home invasion had occurred. EMS transported him to a nearby hospital, where officers later detained and arrested him on an out-of-town warrant.
Police reviewed security footage showing three men forcing open a door before entering the home. Moments later, the audio captured gunfire. Seconds after the shots, two of the suspects fled, leaving their companion behind. Three more shots rang out, and the third suspect bolted from the doorway. The wounded intruder was later charged in connection with the home invasion. His accomplices have not yet been identified or charged.1
No Workable Plan
While the defender had a firearm ready at his bedside, what he lacked was a workable plan in the event of a multiple-attacker home invasion. Facing three intruders, he made the right decision to retreat, but without a clear escape route, his only option was to exit through a broken glass window, resulting in severe injuries to his hands and legs.
As easy as it is to say from the distance of hindsight, an ideal response to the situation he faced would have been to call 911 and wait for help while safely locked in his bedroom, a piece of heavy furniture positioned in front of the door for added protection.
It’s far more difficult to defend against three armed attackers than to wait for police in relative safety behind a closed and locked door. Properly barricaded, the homeowner would have been much harder to victimize, and a loud announcement that the police were on their way would likely have had a strong motivational effect on the three felons’ decision to flee.
When Training Matters Most
Like many, the homeowner could have benefited from taking a basic home-defense class and spending time studying his home to understand which rooms offered the best protection during a break-in. Such training would have helped him identify areas that provided solid cover or useful concealment, assess the best sight lines inside the home, and recognize “fatal funnels” — and how to use them to his advantage.
With that knowledge, he could have developed a plan that allowed him to retreat safely without having to break a window and seriously injure himself in the process. Training would have also improved his marksmanship, ensuring that he could reliably and confidently place accurate rounds on the intruders attacking him.
The Law on His Side
The legality of the homeowner’s actions in shooting at the intruders is not in dispute. Police did not arrest or charge him with any crime. This is because Texas Penal Code Section 9.31 clearly states that “a person is justified in using force against another when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to protect the actor against the other’s use or attempted use of unlawful force.”2
The law further presumes that a defender’s actions are reasonable if the person against whom he or she used force “unlawfully and with force entered, or was attempting to enter unlawfully and with force, the actor’s occupied habitation, vehicle, or place of business or employment.” That presumption clearly applies to the facts of this case.3
Recovery
The homeowner’s aunt started a GoFundMe campaign to help him cover expenses as he recovers from the severe injuries he sustained while escaping through the glass window. He remains uncertain when he will be able to return to work as a massage therapist. We all send him our best and are pulling for him to make a complete recovery.
Endnotes
(1) Ryan Osborne, “Fort Worth man shoots home invasion suspect, escapes through a window, police say,” WFAA, July 25, 2025, WFAA.com/article/ news/local/fort-worth-texas-shootinghome- invasion-robbery/287-6cccd5ac- 88f5-443f-b4bb-f4883de40c1a; Scoop Jefferson, “Fort Worth man’s brave escape during a violent home invasion leaves him on a long road to recovery,” WFAA, July 30, 2025, WFAA.com/ article/news/local/tarrant-county/ fort-worth-mans-brave-escape-duringhome- invasion-leaves-him-on-longroad- to-recovery/287-650e753f-33d1- 442a-9164-0733599c7398.
(2) Texas Penal Code Section 9.31(b).
(3) Texas
