Neutralized does not mean emptying a 16 or 17 round magazine into someone. You will find yourself in very big debt, if you own anything of value. Even cops who use excessive force get in deep crap. There is no reason that you need that many shots to stop a threat, unless you are missing the target completely, or the guy has on Body armor. Once the threat is over you have to stop shooting, that's the law. I have seen guys take 4 shots to go down but 17 or 23 like another recent shooting is Murder. You are a licensed permit holder I assume, there are rules and laws, a good lawyer will eat you alive in court, and you would be lucky to not do jail time. Of course you will say I am alive, but you would be just as alive without emptying that many rounds into someone. I saw that video where I counted 23 shots that the sheriff fired at a perp outside a convenience store, he entirely screwed the pooch, by waiting a good 3 minutes to taze the guy after a dozen commands to keep his hands up, "knowing the guy was armed and trying to get to his gun, he had 2 other officers there also. They shot so poorly that the guy was still alive after 23 rounds at 15 feet away.
And not being LEO, or retired, you better have insurance for these things or you will get hung out to dry, especially in certain states or counties. I have been carrying USSC ins for a few years now, only because everyone sues. A legal battle like the ones that arise from civilian shootings can run into the 6 figure range and higher.
This from the ops link
Bullets, liability, and you
Let’s say you have a Glock 17 with a full load of 18 rounds and are attacked. Let’s further say that your second shot causes your attacker to collapse, incapacitated. Would you continue firing the rest of your magazine — another 16 rounds — at the space he formerly occupied? I don’t know anyone who would say “yes”, because that’s clearly reckless.
How about shooting one more round? We know that it’s physiologically impossible to stop immediately once the trigger finger is moving, and so most of us would probably say another round or two was an acceptable over-run. So, at somewhere between two and 16 additional rounds we cross the line of acceptability. Is that line at three rounds? Five? Nine? I don’t know, and you don’t, but what we do know is that someone else will be making the judgment for us — and well after the fact.
In any defensive shooting, ethics (and increasingly our legal system) require you to justify every shot you make. In more and more cases, courts — whether actual or that of public opinion — are looking at the number of shots fired. When certain things happen in the chaos of a defensive shooting, such as unexplained shots in the suspect’s back or head, the focus often shifts from what the attacker did to what the defender over-did. Should one of those “extra” rounds injure or kill a bystander, the scrutiny will probably increase exponentially.
This is likely to only get worse as time goes on.
Decision making while shooting
In a self defense shooting, there are several questions which the defender (you) needs to process in rapid succession:
- Do I need to shoot this guy?
- Do I need to shoot this guy again?
- Do I need to keep shooting this guy?
- Do I need to stop shooting this guy?