The maintenance man in North Carolina had just arrived to fix damage from a leak. The teenager in Georgia was only looking for his girlfriend’s apartment. The cheerleader in Texas simply wanted to find her car in a dark parking lot after practice.
Each of them accidentally went to the wrong address or opened the wrong door — and each was shot. They had made innocent mistakes that became examples of the kind of deadly errors that can occur in a country bristling with guns, anger and paranoia, and where most states have empowered gun owners with new self-defense laws.
This week, the issue of “wrong address” shootings stirred protests and widespread outrage after a homeowner in Kansas City, Mo., shot a 16-year-old who rang the wrong doorbell. Days later, a 20-year-old woman in upstate New York was fatally shot after she and her friends turned into the wrong driveway. And then two cheerleaders in Texas were shot after one got into the wrong car in a dark parking lot.
But many other cases have attracted far less attention. In July 2021, a Tennessee man was charged with brandishing a handgun and firing it after two cable-company workers mistakenly crossed onto his land. Last June, a Virginia man was arrested after the authorities say he shot at three lost teenage siblings who had accidentally pulled onto his property.
“It’s shoot first, ask questions later,” said Justin Diepenbrock, who lives in Polk County, Fla., where the authorities say a father and son searching for what they thought was a burglar opened fire last year on a woman parking her car after working an overnight shift.
The catalyst? The neighbors charged in the shooting had spotted Mr. Diepenbrock on a doorbell camera leaving mistakenly delivered medication at their front door, according to court records.
No precise figures are available, but these shootings are relatively uncommon in a country with nearly 49,000 gun deaths in a year. But gun-control advocates say they are a stark illustration…