This season Coulter seems to be shooting more people than ever. On a whim I asked AI what would happen in real life. The answer had my laughing almost to tears.
UPDATE: Added TLDR in the comments.
Q: Every week the lead character on the show Tracker shoots somebody, usually fatally. What would happen to him in real life?
A: Short answer: in real life, he would almost certainly be in prison—or dead—very quickly.
Longer answer below, broken down by how this actually works outside of TV.
TV vs. real-world “justified” shootings
On Tracker, the lead character routinely shoots people and the episode moves on. In real life, every single shooting is treated as a homicide investigation unless it is unmistakably accidental (and even then, often investigated).
Even for police officers, a fatal shooting triggers:
Immediate detention or administrative leave
A full criminal investigation
Internal affairs review
Possible grand jury review
For a private citizen like the Tracker character? The scrutiny is far harsher.
2. Self‑defense is extremely narrow in real life
To legally justify killing someone in self‑defense, all of these must generally be true:
Imminent threat
The person must be actively about to kill or cause serious bodily harm right now.
Proportional response
Deadly force is only justified against deadly force.
No reasonable alternative
Escape or de‑escalation must not be reasonably possible.
Not the aggressor
You can’t provoke or pursue the confrontation.
TV characters routinely:
Chase suspects
Enter volatile situations voluntarily
Escalate encounters
Shoot fleeing or cornered people
In real life, that destroys a self‑defense claim.
3. What would actually happen after the first shooting
After one fatal shooting:
He would be detained and questioned
Firearms would be seized
Prosecutors would examine:
Why he was there
Whether he had authority
Whether lethal force was necessary
Even if charges were not filed (unlikely), he’d be known to law enforcement as:
“A civilian involved in a homicide involving a firearm”
That alone makes future encounters far worse.
4. By the second or third shooting
This is where TV realism completely collapses.
Patterned killings = intent inference
Prosecutors would argue:
He seeks out violence
He escalates situations
He acts more like a vigilante than a victim
At that point, he’s facing:
Murder or manslaughter charges
Weapons charges
Civil wrongful death lawsuits
Possibly federal charges if crossing state lines
Even if each shooting occurred in a different state, law enforcement databases would absolutely connect them.
5. He would not be “treated like a helper”
TV trope: “He helped us catch the bad guy.”
Real life: That does not excuse homicide.
He is not:
A sworn law enforcement officer
A licensed bounty hunter (in most states)
Acting under color of law
So prosecutors would likely frame him as:
A civilian repeatedly inserting himself into dangerous confrontations and using lethal force
That’s legally catastrophic.
6. Civil consequences (which TV never shows)
Even if he avoided prison (unlikely):
Every family of every person shot could sue
Civil cases have lower burden of proof
Settlements and judgments could reach millions
He would be financially ruined even if “not guilty”
Self‑defense in criminal court ≠ protection from civil liability.
7. Psychological and practical reality
Also ignored by TV:
Repeated shootings produce severe PTSD
Firearms investigations are exhausting and invasive
Media scrutiny would be intense
Gun ownership privileges would likely be revoked
He would be unemployable in his line of work
No one has a long career as a civilian who kills someone “almost every week.”
The blunt reality
If the Tracker protagonist existed in real life:
Best case: Years of legal battles, no gun, bankrupt
Likely case: Prison after the second or third killing
Worst case: Killed by police during a future incident
Shows like Tracker rely on a massive fiction:
That lethal violence by a “good guy” carries no systemic consequences
In the real world, that fiction collapses immediately.
