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Originally Posted by Tee  One would think that "unlawful discharge of a firearm" occurs in every shooting-homocide, since the gun is unlawfully fired a fraction of a second before the bullet actually contacts the victim. |
If you are charging the guy with premeditated murder, you don't need to worry about connecting it with an unlawful felony. The murder is felonious itself. Felony murder is used when someone did something inherently dangerous, but may have lacked the intentional mental state needed to prove premeditated murder.
The classic case of felony murder is a bank robbery. If you decide to rob a bank and a couple of people happen to die in the process, then you probably didn't have a premeditated plan to kill those people, you just wanted the money. You probably would've preferred if people hadn't died, it was just bad luck. However, you were comitting inherently dangerous acts (the bank robbin') that are often likely (and foreseeable) to result in deaths. Society views these acts (and unlawful discharge at an occupied dwelling) as so dangerous that they should also carry the same penalty as regular premeditated murder. Firing off rounds at an occupied dwelling is like this.
However, you could also imagine cases of homicides where it wouldn't involve an unlawful discharge of a firearm at all. What if a homeowner believes that anintruder has broken into their home, they think they see something and they shoot, but it turns out to be their teenage sneaking back into the house after sneaking out. They would not be charged with felony murder. Same wth a huntng accident, etc.
Normally you can show the intent to kill the shootee, so felony murder is the rarer case.