[animal]

Anyone that doesn’t count the mob itself as deadly force has never seen a real multiple opponent fight or how an angry mob acts, much less faced multiple opponents using relatively "harmless" fists.
Once you’re off your feet, you are dead if they want you dead … or if they are too stupid or mad to realize what an extra kick or stomp to the right place to the guy on the ground can do.

As far as I’m concerned, a proper warning shot would have been center of mass to the most aggressive opponent. A proper "backstop" is the mob itself. Sounds harsh, but reality is harsh sometimes. The mob is not a group of innocents and bad guys, it is entity unto itself and each individual is a part of it.

A warning shot into the air is taking a risk. (In reality, it’s a very small risk, even in a heavily populated area.) If the shooter is willing to take that risk, he bears responsibility for the consequences, just as if he chose a weak backstop or one that causes a ricochet. The shooter’s focus is on diffusing the conflict without causing harm to the individuals in the mob … Intent to cause harm is absent, so a criminal penalty (if any) should arise from negligence, and judging whether the shooter was negligent ; should focus on the reasonable expectations of the result of his actions.

Warning shots like in the mob situation are examples of the shooter taking a risk of causing harm to the "innocent" in order to avoid causing harm to the "guilty". Imo, he can rightfully take the chance to be "nicer" to the mob than the treatment it "deserves", as long as there is no reasonable expectation of causing harm to the innocent.

Citing the laws defining warning shots as the use of deadly force supports an absurd argument with codified absurdity, imo. Without intent, deadly force is not being used. Force is being used to display that you can be deadly. There is a huge difference.
If the use of force is justified in the immediate situation and becomes deadly in a way that was beyond reasonable expectations, it should not be considered a crime.
If the use of force was not justified in the immediate situation and becomes deadly, the crime is one of criminal negligence.
Unjustified use of force and no harm to innocents, the crime is one of recklessness.
Justified use with no harm to innocents, everybody wins except those who deserve to lose.