I am sympathetic to the man and his situation, but I would like to hear more about how this went down. I would like to support him, but so far I’m only seeing a request and not the full reason.
One clue for you is that the guy that got shot and another guy went back to the party where he knew drinking was in progress.
The first rule of self protection is you do not confront a person with whom you may have a disagreement on that person’s front porch.
When you are on the other guy’s front porch and not yours, you are going to have a hard time defending yourself from the charge that you were looking for trouble.
On that basis alone, I give the shooter a pass.