A Virginia prosecutor has charged the son of a serially abusive man with first degree murder for shooting and killing his 6’4″ 250+ lbs father. A large part of her reasoning for filing murder charges is that she claims that the teen-aged victim fired too many shots in self-defense.

Ann Baskervill, the Dinwiddie County commonwealth’s attorney, said 18-year-old James Faison fired eight rounds at his father with a .45-caliber handgun, with six shots hitting the victim.

“He emptied the gun, the only reason he stopped shooting is because it didn’t have anymore ammo,” Baskervill said.

It is for this reason that she has charged Faison with first-degree murder, which could land the young man in prison for the rest of his life plus three years.

As we (and others) have noted before, you will be held accountable for each and every bullet that you fire in self-defense.

While Irvin Faison appears to have been a vicious and violent thug who routinely and violently abused his son—and even did some jail time for that abuse—the prosecutor is claiming that son James Faison used too many bullets in shooting his father to legitimately claim lawful self-defense.

The media coverage of this case has been “a mile wide and an inch deep” as folks would say back home, with a lot of background information on the protective orders (plural) filed by James Faison against his father in recent years, and Irvin Faison’s physical and psychological abuse of his son and ex-wife.

Unfortunately, there is precious little information about the specific circumstances of the shooting itself.

All the prosecutors are saying is that they felt James Faison had the ability to retreat and should have, and that they felt the number of shots fired was excessive.

You will be held accountable for every shot that you fire in self-defense, folks.

Never forget that.