Twice in one season!: A TV show with a successful defensive gun use, Paramount’s Yellowstone

You will search in vain for civilians successfully using guns in self-defense in entertainment television shows. When civilians use guns defensively, something always goes wrong. Either they die using the gun, accidentally shoot the wrong person, or they get in the way of police trying to do their job (https://crimeresearch.org/tag/tv-bias-shows-failure-of-defensive-gun-use/). We regularly collect those cases, so when a television show finally shows a successful defensive gun use, we want to acknowledge it.

Paramount’s Yellowstone (Season 4, Episode 8, Dec 19, 2021) has John Dutton (played by Kevin Costner) and Rip Wheeler (played by Cole Hauser) arrive at a restaurant where a robbery is occurring. The Sheriff is one of the hostages in the restaurant. Dutton and Costner successfully stop the robbers, though the sheriff was fatally shot when he tried to shoot the robbers.