Auto shop shootout. (Exercising the Right).

In March of last year, some three weeks before opening Ntense Kustoms & Car Audio in northeast Richland, South Carolina, Sterling Patterson, 23, bought a handgun for protection. He hoped that he would never have to use it, but that aspiration went up in gunsmoke on October 8, 2002.

Patterson was in the garage portion of the store that morning, and a co-worker, Andrae Stokes, was in the customer service area, when Patterson noticed a minivan pull up and stop some 50 feet from the building. Three men armed with handguns emerged from the vehicle, pulled their T-shirts up to their eyes, and entered the store.

One of the men placed his gun against Stokes' head and forced him to the ground, warning, "If you move I'll kill you." Patterson immediately ran to the back office to retrieve his own gun, then returned to confront the thugs. "They had their guns drawn and pointed at me. I had my gun pointed at them," he later recalled for Columbia's The State newspaper. "I don't know if I shot first or they shot first. All I know is everybody started shooting.... I was afraid for my life."

When the gunman who had threatened Stokes straightened and began firing, Patterson "put the red light [his ...