And right there you just admitted to being wrong. NC requires you to be fearing for you life to fire upon someone. By firing warning shots, it is argued that you do not fear for you life if you're willing to warn the person or thing you are trying to intimidate.
Again, the North Carolina prosecutors already weighed in on this case, it happened a month ago and they made their charging decisions: The man doing the drive-by shooting was extradited from Georgia and charged with a felony for assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or inflict serious injury, with discharging a firearm within an enclosure to incite fear, and willful and wanton injury to personal property. The man who fired warning shots into the air was not charged.
If you need the difference spelled out for you: Firing into the air is not the same as firing
upon someone. It would put you in legal jeopardy if your 'warning shots' were actually striking at or near someone, sure. But firing into the air as a warning is not a serious crime like felony assault, as 'firing upon someone' is. There is no consideration of 'fear for his own life' or other elements of self-defense, because he's not exercising lethal self-defense.
The vandal who attacked private property, then fired shots at someone
while speeding away did actually deploy lethal force directed at someone, and has no valid claim to a self-defense argument because 1) he initiated a criminal act while armed, one that is inherently dangerous and could predictably lead to a violent confrontation and 2) he fired his shots while speeding away, out of a sunroof, when he was already escaping the scene.
Some states and cities have regulations on discharging firearms in public that aren't assaults, usually as a nuisance clause with a minor fine or warning, but this is
not the case in North Carolina where state law explicitly overrides cities/counties and says they may not pass regulations on discharging firearm when its in defense of a person or property. Again, like I said, its North Carolina, not California:
>§ 160A-189. Firearms.
>A city may by ordinance regulate, restrict, or prohibit the discharge of firearms at any time or place within the city
except when used in defense of person or property or pursuant to lawful directions of law-enforcement officers, and may regulate the display of firearms on the streets, sidewalks, alleys, or other public property. Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit a city's authority to take action under Article 1A of Chapter 166A of the General Statutes. (1971, c. 698, s. 1; 2012-12, s. 2(zz).)
Even without such a clause, most prosecutors totally fucking ignore minor gripes like 'warning shots' when in defense against someone else who is clearly an aggressor, because not every minor infraction needs criminal sanction.
But in this case, its explicitly protected by law.
I feel as if I'm explaining to you that the 9/11 hijackers were not legally justified in using box cutters to seize control of planes and fly them into buildings, and no prosecutor has ever charged the passengers of United 93 with assault or disorderly conduct for trying to fight back. Do you
really need me to explain this to you? Are you fully incapable of recognizing political violence through any non-tribal lens?