WSJ Article Assumes Justifiable Homicides Don’t Save Lives

AmmoLand ^ | November 12, 2025 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

A recent Wall Street Journal article makes claims about justifiable homicides using false or at least unproven assumptions. From wsj.com:

It’s easier than ever to kill someone in America and get away with it. 

In 30 states, it often requires only a claim you killed while protecting yourself or others. 

There are several assumptions wrapped up in the opening sentences. First is the assumption that it is never necessary or justified to kill someone.  The phrase “get away with it” implies the person was not justified. Even though the article is about justified homicides, the authors, in the first sentence, imply that justified homicides are not justified.  Why the literary double-speak? It is because the premise of the article depends on convincing the reader that justified homicides were not justified.

This is a progressive article of faith. It is not sustained by the facts. In a previous article at AmmoLand, this correspondent explained two different models of how homicide happens, at least in Western society.

From AmmoLand:

The first model, which I call the “Progressive Elite” model, has these basic assumptions about criminal homicide and its causes:

1.  The majority of people, except for the exceptional elite, are just moments away from committing a criminal homicide.  They have poor impulse control and fly into rages which escalate into homicidal rages if a weapon happens to be present.  For this reason, only those in the elite, who have become experts in government through the attainment of public office, employment by police agencies, or attendance at ivy league schools, should be allowed access to weapons that might be use when these uncontrollable, emotional fits, strike.  Just a few months ago, it was reasonably summarized by  David Frum at thedailybeast:

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TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: banglist; homicide; justified; wsj

[FlingWingFlyer]

Far left wing rags like WSJ don’t “get it”. They’re a bunch of kooks.

[MtnClimber]

The WSJ writers must be looking out for safety in their possible future occupations after everyone quits reading their rag.

[equaviator]

If you’re at home and have to shoot an intruder and her defense is that she was in fear for her life because that day was an Ozone Action Day, is she not an intruder after all? /s

[Redleg Duke]

I am so old that I remember when the Wall Street Journal was a respected and reputable newspaper!

[AAABEST]

WSJ was always neocon establishment, but they’ve become unreadable globalist trash.

As with most legacy media papers, we can only guess about who/what is funding thier operation now that nobody buys their rag anymore.

[Celtic Conservative]

If someone tries to kill me and I shoot them I’ve saved one life, MINE! If it saves others, then win-win.

CC

[DeplorablePaul]

The very first sentence uttered by my first NRA instructor was “You are not shooting bullets. You are shooting lawyers”. If forced to self defend it had better be a crystal clear life or death situation. A prosecutor will dismantle a “feared for my life” defense. And you better stop shooting when the threat is stopped. There’s the unfortunate case where a homeowner shot an intruder and then reloaded and shot him some more. The home owner went to jail.

[T.B. Yoits]

The hypocrites at the Wall Street Urinal need to discontinue using armed security for their offices, because a firearm is a deadly weapon and such use of deadly force would be a justifiable homicide at minimum.

[marktwain]

There are many studies which show the vast majority of illegal homicides are committed by a tiny minority of people with long histories of violence, often many previous convictions.

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This is in direct contradiction of the “Progressive model of homicide”.

[Bob434]

And water doesnt qu3nch thirst, or food satiate hunger. WSJ lost all credibility a long time ago

[MikelTackNailer]

There’s those famous future 2nd Amendment backers who haven’t been mugged yet.

[Paal Gulli]

Furthermore, for every defensive firearm use that ends with someone getting shot (or at least shot at), there are hundreds if not thousands (an estimated average of 2 million a year in the US) of incidents when merely brandishing the firearm warms off the threat.

Which PUTS THE LIE to the theory that we're all a bunch of hotheads who can't wait for the opportunity to go Charles Bronson on some would-be perp and blow him away purely because we have no restraint. Because in the OVERWHELMING majority of defensive firearm uses, NO SHOTS ARE FIRED.

[Uncle Miltie]

I remember the WSJ Editorial Page being identifiably Conservative under Robert Bartley.

Paul Gigot sucks!!!

[FlingWingFlyer]

When you shoot somebody who is threatening your life, somebody like a Kamela Harris liberal, the next thing you should do is shoot a lawyer. Eventually we’ll get them all.

[oldtech]

The statement that in America today it’s easier than ever to kill someone.... I would say it is very possibly true, but maybe not just because of malice on one’s own side. If someone,let’s say a criminal, threatens your being with a weapon then you have very limited choices in such circumstances. A perfectly normal person might kill another in this instance. I think it is more likely these days because of the action that ex-president Biden in letting all the illegal aliens across the border & many were criminals & apparently there are still many of them here. If a normal person were to come up against one of these, he/she has few choices,but the first choice, if possible, would be to save their own life. Left alone, the victim would never have contemplated committing such an act.

[Celtic Conservative]

I get what you're saying. Violent Crime is intra familial and intra cultural (for the most part) I have confronted others with the index crime rates per racial group. They usually tell me I'm lying or making 💩 up. And the majority of crime is committed by a relatively small number of individuals. I was being slightly facetious, but the fact remains that if someone tries to hurt me and I've killed them at minimum one person has been saved.

CC

[metmom]

*the elite*???

Dear Lord, spare us.

Of course they think they should be the only ones allowed guns. All the better to control us without the risk of us fighting back.

[marktwain]

You are correct.

[marktwain]

A very interesting chart, Paal.

I published a very similar one in 2016, but I included all homicides, because if “gun control” just results in a substitution of methods, it has not accomplished its stated purpose. It covered a much longer period.

Do you know when the chart was published?