This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Have you heard about the wave of backpack crime sweeping the nation?

Rampaging criminals breaking into homes, kidnapping, raping and murdering innocents while brandishing deadly Keltys and Jansports?

Yeah. Me neither.

So I'm a little mystified why George Harrison felt so threatened by an obviously obnoxious, apparently aggressive, couch-hopping homeless man who swung his backpack at Mama's Southern Plantation diners last week.

We've all run into mumbling, stumbling misfits on the sidewalks downtown. Some rant and rave. Most of us walk away or call the police. But when 47-year-old Mike Mays reached into his pocket and "intimated he was reaching for a weapon in his pants," the part-time restaurant security guard didn't wait to find out if he was. Harrison pulled his concealed weapon and squeezed the trigger.

A gun will always beat a backpack.

The street fight between Harrison and Mays goes to the heart of our notions of a "reasonable" right to self-defense. Police shifted a good chunk of the blame to the dead man; he "contributed to the confrontation that ultimately led to his death." They tiptoed around the concealed-weapon carrier/Vietnam vet who killed him, questioning and releasing him the same afternoon; he was "very cooperative."

How the case is handled is a matter of public policy and social conscience. Is starting an argument enough to get you killed on the streets of Salt Lake City now? Are concealed-weapon holders going to join the rarified ranks of the police - the only people we give a license to shoot-to-kill outside the battlefield and our own homes?

This will come down to an interpretation of Utah law, which does not require a person to retreat if feeling threatened.

"We're dealing with a human life here. From a moral standpoint, people ought to be willing to run away in the face of this kind of threat," says Steven Gunn, a board member of the Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah. "The shooter should have retreated. He should never have allowed the situation to escalate to the point where he had to use deadly force. He had no duty to do that."

Concealed-weapon instructor Clark Aposhian says he always teaches his students to disengage, to "warn and retreat." His classes also role play to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot situations.

"You don't have to wait until a person pulls out a gun or a knife or chokes you to death. You don't have to wait until they are actually harming you," says Aposhian. "But you can't just say, 'I don't like the look of that guy, I'm going to shoot him.' It has to be somewhere in between. Some people are easily frightened, but that doesn't mean they can pull a gun."

A lot is at stake at the conclusion of this investigation. Concealed-weapon carriers boast that they are five to seven times less likely than the rest of us to commit crimes. But if Harrison's hair trigger creates a firestorm, lawmakers may face pressure to scale back the state's free-wheeling concealed-weapon permitting program.

"I want [the shooting] to be justified, because I don't want this to have an air of criminality about it," says Aposhian. "Honestly, I'd love to see the police report and witness statements."

Salt Lake City police are being circumspect, cautious, careful.

They will work "closely" with District Attorney Lohra Miller to determine if any charges should be filed against Harrison. Just because he was not arrested doesn't mean this is over.

"We're trying to be very thorough. If we don't get it right, we don't get a do-over," says police spokesman Jeff Bedard. "We rely a lot on witnesses."

So my question for the witnesses is: How threatening was that backpack?