Definition
In law, shooting refers to the act of discharging a firearm or other projectile weapon, considered in one of several legal contexts:
1. Criminal law: The discharge of a firearm in a manner that causes or threatens bodily injury or death. Shooting is not itself a discrete offense in most jurisdictions but is the operative act underlying charges such as assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated assault, battery, attempted murder, manslaughter, or homicide. Whether the shooting is criminal turns on intent, result, and circumstance.
2. Property and sporting rights (English law): The right of shooting is a recognized property interest — specifically, the right to take game by firearm over a defined parcel of land. This right may be reserved in a conveyance, granted by license, or let separately from the underlying land. It is treated as a profit à prendre or a variety of the right of sporting.
3. Civil liability: A shooting that causes injury or death gives rise to tort claims independent of any criminal prosecution. The civil standard of liability (typically negligence or intentional tort) governs regardless of criminal outcome.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An instance of shooting with a gun or other weapon; the sport or activity of firing a gun; a district in which people have the right to kill game with firearms; a sensation of darting pain; filming.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The act of one who shoots; wounding or killing with a firearm; specifically in sporting contexts, the killing of game. Also, a sensation of darting pain.
The common meaning of "shooting" focuses on the physical act or event. Legal usage splits into two structurally different concepts that share only the word: criminal and tort law treat shooting as conduct forming the basis of liability, while English property law treats "the shooting" as a heritable or transferable right — a thing owned, not merely an act performed. A researcher moving between criminal records and land records must track which sense is operative.
Common Confusion
The word "shooting" in historical English legal documents may refer to the property right to shoot game over land, not to any violent act. In conveyances, estate records, and sporting leases, "the shooting" is an interest in land. In indictments, coroners' records, and criminal proceedings, "shooting" describes conduct. These two uses can appear in the same document collection and require separate analytical frameworks.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Shooting as criminal conduct:
- Shooting with intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm (historical English formulation)
- Shooting resulting in death (the predicate act in homicide charges)
- Reckless or negligent discharge of a firearm
- Drive-by shooting (modern statutory formulation in some U.S. jurisdictions)
Shooting as property right (English law):
- Exclusive shooting rights (reserved to grantor or let to a sporting tenant)
- Shared or common shooting rights
- Shooting rights held in gross vs. appurtenant to land
Why It Matters in Research
The bifurcation between shooting-as-act and shooting-as-right is the primary research trap with this term. Historical English land records, conveyancing precedents, and estate documents routinely use "shooting" to denote a property interest that has no close American equivalent and that modern researchers may misread as a reference to violent conduct.
In criminal law research, "shooting" rarely appears as a standalone charge. Researchers must trace it to the specific offense charged — the indictment language, not the colloquial description, controls. Early American and English indictments may use elaborate formal language (shooting with a certain gun loaded with gunpowder and leaden shot) that differs sharply from modern statutory shorthand.
The law of sporting rights, including shooting rights, underwent significant statutory treatment in England under the Game Acts (particularly the Game Act 1831), which affects how pre- and post-1831 sources discuss the right. American sources largely lack the English property-right concept of "the shooting," making direct transposition of English doctrine unreliable.
In tort law, the corpus will show the shooting as a factual predicate connecting to battery, negligence, products liability (defective firearms), and wrongful death. These are distinct doctrinal threads requiring separate navigation even when the underlying event is the same.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence identifies shooting, in English law, as a variety of the right of sporting — a property concept with its own doctrinal structure. This is the entry's entire treatment of the term, which reflects the dictionary's English law orientation. The definition is accurate and useful but narrow: it addresses only the property-right dimension and says nothing about shooting as the basis for criminal or civil liability.
Webster's 1913 captures both the general act (discharge of a weapon) and the sporting usage (killing of game), but does not engage with the legal property concept. The sporting definition in Webster's aligns directionally with the English legal usage without reaching its technical content.
Neither source addresses shooting in the context of American criminal law or modern firearms statutes. Rapalje & Lawrence's silence on criminal and tort dimensions is notable, though consistent with the dictionary's focus on property and common law concepts as opposed to criminal procedure. Researchers should not read that silence as evidence that shooting lacked criminal significance — only that the editors treated it primarily as a property-rights term.
Jurisdictional Note
The English property-law concept of shooting rights as a profit à prendre or sporting right does not translate directly to American law, where game ownership and hunting rights are structured differently and largely governed by state statute. In jurisdictions following the English common law tradition (including some Commonwealth countries), the right of shooting over land remains a recognized and transferable interest. American researchers working in English or Commonwealth sources should treat "the shooting" in property documents as a technical term of art requiring separate doctrinal investigation.