The cartoon opening - did West shoot the card cheater?

I have recently seen a few WWW episodes for the first time in this millennium and noticed a few things in the cartoon in the opening.

In the panel where West kisses and then punches a woman, I noticed that she was trying to stab him in the back, and I don't remember if I ever noticed it before. That certainly gives a bigger justification for punching her.

In the upper left panel a hand holding a gun gets the drop on West, who then shoots a derringer and the hand drops the gun and dangles lifelessly.

And in the upper right panel a hand starts to pull a card out of a boot, and a pistol enters the frame and points upward. The hand drops the card. And afterward the hand is not pulled up out of the frame but dangles like the hand of the man who was shot in the other frame.

So is the audience supposed to think that West would shoot a man for a non violent crime like trying to cheat at cards?