Actually, Josephine, a good question is: why did Regina give him that punishment? Her goal was to get revenge on SW, right? What could Jefferson have done that was so horrible that he deserved the punishment he got?
@Oncescape wrote:
Jefferson is on my villains list actually. He aimed a gun at Emma’s head and we don’t KNOW what would have happened if Mary Margaret hadn’t hit him with the croquet mallet. He now knew Emma didn’t believe, she’d made a hat and it didn’t work, and he may have been convinced she was now useless. He also may have felt vengeful against her for not truly TRYING to help him.
Honestly, I don’t think Jefferson would have fired that gun. As Regina pointed out, he’s too good; he doesn’t have it in him.
However, he seems to know a lot about the curse; he knew that if he killed Regina, the curse would remain unbroken forever, and he’d never get Grace back. So, it seems likely that he would have known that, had he killed Emma, the curse would be broken. Maybe this is why he figured he had nothing to lose; either Emma did what he wanted, or the curse was broken and he got his daughter back.