There’s a trial in Virginia over a shooting. Let me describe the reported circumstances, and let you decide what you’d have done.

You’re minding your own business, when a 6′ 5″ “goon” (his own monicker, by the way) walks up on you. He sticks his hand in your face and calls you a “dips**t”. You repeatedly tell him to stop, but he refuses. You keep backing away, but he keeps closing on you, still calling you a “dips**t.” You try to knock his hand out your face, but he continues.

Would you be frightened, concerned for your physical safety?

Would you shoot the hulking threat?

Alan Colie did shoot the goon; a single shot to the abdomen. And was arrested for it.

Cook, who is 6-foot-5, could be seen holding a cell phone about 6 inches from Colie’s face. The cellphone broadcasted the phrase “Hey dips—-, quit thinking about my twinkle” through a Google Translate app several times.

Colie could be heard saying “stop” on three separate occasions and tried to back away from Cook, who continued to advance towards him.

Colie attempted to knock the phone away from his face before he allegedly pulled out a gun and shot Cook in the lower left chest.

The “rest of the story” is that the goon is a YouTube “prankster,” who has had multiple run-ins with law enforcement over his disgusting, frightening, and threatening “pranks” pulled on unsuspecting strangers. A sane person of normal intelligence might learn from those encounters that such “pranks” are dangerous.

Not Cook.

YouTube prankster Tanner Cook said in court on Tuesday that he had no idea he had scared or angered Alan Colie, 31, who ended up allegedly shooting him during a prank.

And why would he even consider the possibility that his victim might be scared? After all, it’s not like any of his other targets were…

Cook said during the hearing that he tries to confuse targets of his pranks for the amusement of his online audience and doesn’t try to elicit fear or anger, but said his targets often react that way.

Oh. So he already knew that his subjects often perceive him as a threat — just as Colie did — but still thought thought the risk of instilling that fear would be fun.

Would I have shot the goon? Quite possibly, given the scenario described in court. I would certainly have drawn my sidearm and issued one last warning. Then, whether I fired or not would depend on Cook passing the impromptu IQ test.

The prosecution in this case maintains that the shooting was unjustified because the goon was “unarmed.”

“It was stupid. It was silly. And you may even think it was offensive. But that’s all it was — a cellphone in the ear that got Tanner shot.”

No, it was disparity of force. Colie was threatened by a person much larger and stronger; a person who refused to cease his threatening actions. Cook didn’t need a weapon to be a danger, he was a weapon. And while Cook might not have intended to be a threat, Colie didn’t know that; he only knew what he was experiencing, and that was the actions of Cook, who admitted that he knew his victims “often” saw his acts as threatening.

Juries are weird, so I don’t know how this will turn; but I know how it should: acquittal.

As for goon Cook, he clearly is still failing life’s ongoing intelligence test. I suspect he’ll finally encounter someone less restrained than Colie — who only fired a single shot to stop the advancing threat — who will empty his magazine center mass, ending those “pranks” for good.

Update, 9/29/2023: The verdict is in. Colie was acquitted of the two felony malicious wounding and malicious shooting in an occupied structure charges. Weirdly, though, he was convicted of misdemeanor use of a firearm during a felony the same jury said he didn’t committed. Colie’s attorney is addressing that.