If someone comes to your home and repeatedly discharges a firearm and you respond by opening fire on them, the usual general presumption is that the person who came to the home and opened fire is the bad guy… so why is the 20-year-old who defended his mother in jail, while the man who brought a gun to the home and opened fire isn’t?

A Christmas day shooting sent one man to the hospital and another to jail.

Deputies said 20-year-old Alex Becker faces assault charges after he fired a shotgun at 43-year-old Jeffery Joseph on Sandspur Lane.

Investigators said Joseph confronted Becker’s mother and fired gunshots. Deputies said in response, Becker grabbed a shotgun and fired at Joseph.

Becker was taken to jail and given a $100,000 bond.

The shooting is still under investigation and deputies said more charges could be pending.

Becker is not a good person. He just posted a $50,000 bond for a raft of felony charges. That said, Becker didn’t apparently instigate this incident. It was Joseph, confronting Becker’s mother at her home, who drew a weapon and opened fire. Becker apparently then responded by obtaining a shotgun and firing at Joseph to defend his mother and himself from her boyfriend.

While I suspect Becker may have broke the terms of his pretrial release by grabbing the shotgun after Joseph opened fire, that’s not what he was charged with in the incident. He was charged with assault with a deadly weapon after Joseph first fired a shot in the air, and then fired shots at Becker.

It was only after Joseph shot at Becker than Becker obtained the shotgun and fired at Joseph in what seems like a case of self defense from the available news accounts.

Joseph, apparently only hit with several loads of birdshot to the torso (which is an inferior self-defense load, even at in-home distances), is a bloody mess as you can expect, but the wounds are shallow and since he’s made it this long, it seems likely he’ll recover.

There are no “good guys” in this story—to read the comments by friends and family members you get the strong impression that the entire family and their associates are likely criminals—but I’d be very curious to discover why Becker is facing charges and Joseph isn’t when Joseph seemingly deployed deadly force first, and Becker didn’t arm himself and return fire until after Joseph shot at him.