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When I was in Baltimore last fall, we were driving around with another family with us (8 of us total) and my wife wanted to stop in a certain part of town. I parked the car on the street and then we began walking back towards wherever it was they wanted to go. My wife then asked me to go put something back in the car, so I walked back, had a funny feeling as I rounded the corner, but I put the item back in the car and locked it, started walking back to catch up with the fam and as soon as I turned the corner I found myself walking right into the middle of a drug deal in progress.

G-rreat.

I just walked on through. Nothing more you could do!

Short story of Harold Fish:

Fish was hiking in AZ
he encountered a man and his two "large dogs"
dogs reportedly rush at Fish, and Fish, fearing the dogs are attacking him, fired a "warning shot" into the ground
dog's owner (reportedly) then proceeded to rush at Fish while yelling and screaming threats
Fish claimed to have yelled back at the dog owner, "I didn't shoot your dog!"
Dog owner did not stop his advance even though Fish was clearly armed and willing to fire, and Fish, fearing for his life, shot the man three times
Fish thought he had done nothing wrong and rendered aid to the assailant and notified authorities
Fish is serving a 10 year sentence for what he thought was a pretty clear self-defense shooting

It's an interesting story and one to which CHL holders should pay attention.

The relevant feature here is the dog and the warning shot. Fish fired a warning shot because he didn't want to kill the dogs. The question that always comes up with a warning shot is, why shoot at all if you do not think that shooting is required to stop the threat? Did fish think the dogs were really attacking him? If so, why didn't he shoot the dogs? The shooting in the direction of the dogs is obviously the event that agitated the dogs' owner and prompted him to rush Fish in defense of his dogs. So the warning shot clearly escalated the conflict, and perhaps it caused it to begin with.

I wonder if Fish hadn't fired a warning shot but everything else happened exactly the same way, if he wouldn't be at home now instead of in prison.

Of course if Fish hadn't fired a warning shot, then perhaps he would have been under attack by the dogs as well as the dogs' owner and maybe he would be the one dead and the dog owner would be the one in prison. If Fish had shot the dogs instead of firing a warning shot, then his claim that he was under attack by the dogs may have been more believable and maybe Fish would not have been convicted. Also if Fish had shot the dogs and not just fired a warning shot, then perhaps the dog owner would have been more convinced that Fish was ready and willing to defend himself with deadly force, and maybe he would not have persisted in charging Fish.

A few things about the Fish case stick out at me:

1. did the warning shot affect the outcome of the case?
2. why would any person in their right mind charge at an armed man yelling threats, especially if that armed man had just fired a "warning shot"?

I guess the guy confessed the warning shot to the police? Why else would they know about it? I mean, maybe a "warning shot" is just a "miss".

And on that note, did't Harold Fish get into a bit of a pickle after firing a warning shot to scare off a dog that was rushing him?

If you are not justified to shoot to stop, you are not justified to shoot, period.

Also, don't they normally throw out any UCW charge when the gun is used for self-defense, as in this case?