Subtitled "The Right and Duty of Self-Defence,"Shooting Back tells the story of Charl van Wyk, who was an ordinary Christian man until the day he was called upon to be extraordinary. The date was 25 July 1993 and the event was what was to become known as the St. James Massacre. Charl was catapulted to the media's attention by shooting back at the terrorists who attacked the innocent congregation:

Instinctively, I knelt down behind the bench in front of me and pulled out my .38 special snub-nosed revolver, which I always carried with me. I would have felt undressed without it. Many people could not understand why I would carry a firearm into a church service, but I argued that this was a particularly dangerous time in South Africa....