Dan Bongino

If Biden were trying to elevate the terror threat level in our country he wouldn’t do anything different.
Opening the border to terrorists, handicapping domestic oil production in favor of Middle Eastern oil, draining our oil reserves, spending us into a bankruptcy nightmare, focusing our counter-terror agencies on political opponents, and decimating our domestic manufacturing capabilities in favor of his Green New Deal dystopia.
If he were trying to create conditions ripe for an attack, this is how he would do it.

Judge Bars Trump From Campaigning Against His Top Political Opponent

A U.S. District Court judge has barred former President Donald Trump from campaigning against his top political opponent: the federal government.

On Monday, Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a gag order to prohibit the Republican frontrunner from speaking out on the case just more than a year out from the next election. The order bars Trump from publicly defending himself against attacks from potential witnesses, court personnel, or federal prosecutors in the case, including Special Counsel Jack Smith.

“This is not about whether I like the language Mr. Trump uses,” Judge Chutkan reportedly said. “This is about language that presents a danger to the administration of justice.”

The order itself, however, presents a danger to American democracy. Democrats are already trying to prevent Americans from being given the chance to vote on the former president. Now, far-left activists are wielding the judiciary to prevent Trump from leading an effective campaign. With a more than 45-point lead in the Republican primary, Trump isn’t running against the other candidates attempting to challenge him. He’s running against the Department of Justice, and the Department of Justice under President Joe Biden is running against him with 44 federal indictments to thwart the GOP frontrunner’s triumphant return.

The special counsel prosecuting Trump over protestors’ 2021 attack on the Capitol requested the gag order in September, alleging the former president’s statements over the case sought to “undermine the integrity of these proceedings and prejudice the jury pool.” Yet the proceedings were undermined from the start with the selection of Judge Chutkan to preside over the politically charged case in the nation’s capital. Just more than a week after Smith requested the gag order, Chutkan refused a motion from Trump’s legal team that she recuse herself from the trial.

There has never been any doubt on how Chutkan might rule on consequential decisions since the Jan. 6 indictments were first handed down on Aug. 1. An activist judge with an obvious animus against the former president and his supporters, federal prosecutors could not have been given a more friendly judge in a district more friendly to the government’s case. Beyond the fact residents in Washington D.C. voted for Biden over Trump in 2020 by a whopping 92 to 5 percent, an Emerson College survey found a majority, 64 percent, had already made up their minds to vote in favor of convicting Trump if they were selected for his jury. Only 8 percent said they would find Trump innocent, and another 28 percent were unsure. Chutkan herself is likely among those who would vote in favor of convicting based on recent rulings and statements.

According to the Associated Press in August, the Obama-appointed judge built a reputation as “a tough punisher of Capitol rioters.” Chutkan presided over more than three dozen cases of those charged with crimes related to the Capitol riot.

“Other judges typically have handed down sentences that are more lenient than those requested by prosecutors,” reported the AP. “Chutkan, however, has matched or exceeded prosecutors’ recommendations in 19 of her 38 sentences. In four of those cases, prosecutors weren’t seeking any jail time at all.”

Chutkan has also condemned comparisons of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to the deadly riots for so-called “social justice” of 2020. The fiery riots, she claimed in one hearing, were actually “the actions of people protesting, mostly peacefully, for civil rights.” The Capitol riot, on the other hand, was an attempt to “violently overthrow the government.” Never mind the $2 billion worth of damage, making the outbreak of leftist violence one of the most destructive in American history, and “protestors” targeting of federal buildings. The carnage from the summer of rage cost 66 times more than the estimated damage done to the Capitol in the hours-long riot.

Trump’s Republican rivals attacked him for shelling out a disproportionate amount of campaign funds for his own legal defense. Those attacks, however, fail to grapple with the reality that for Trump, his serious opponents aren’t the other Republicans in the race. His primary contest is one with the federal government trying to silence him.

October 16

1793 – Queen Marie Antoinette is executed on the guillotine

1817 – Italian explorer and archaeologist Giovanni Belzoni, discovers the tomb of Pharaoh Seti I in the Valley of the Kings.

1846 – Dr. William T. G. Morton demonstrates the administration of ether anesthesia for surgical operations at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

1859 – John Brown, leading 21 men, raids the U.S. Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

1875 – Brigham Young University is founded in Provo, Utah.

1882 – The New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad opens for business, connecting Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Toledo.

1909 – Mexican President Porfirio Díaz visits President William Taft in El Paso and Taft returns the visit by traveling to Ciudad Juarez where they narrowly miss being assassinated by a lone gunman who was captured mere feet away from them.

1916 – Margaret Sanger opens the first “family planning” clinic in Brooklyn

1919 – Adolf Hitler delivers his first public address at a meeting of the German Workers’ Party.

1939 – 603 Squadron RAF, flying Spitfires, intercepts the first Luftwaffe raid on Great Britain also making the first fighter kill of the war over the country.

1940 – The Warsaw Ghetto is established.

1946 – 10 Nazis found guilty by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremburg for crimes against humanity are executed by hanging.

1962 – President Kennedy is informed of the aerial photos taken on October 14 of Russian nuclear missiles being installed in Cuba

1964 – With the assistance of the Soviets,  China detonates its first nuclear device at their Lop Nur test site in Xinjiang province,  a uranium implosion device of equivalent power to the one the U.S. used to bomb Nagasaki

1975 – 3 year old Rahima Banu, from Bangladesh, is the last known case of naturally occurring smallpox.

1991 – A man kills 23 and wounds 20 more people after driving his truck into Luby’s restaurant in Killeen, Texas. One of the patrons, Suzanna Gratia Hupp, left her handgun in her vehicle instead of breaking the law, and later continued to campaign for Texas concealed carry until it was passed into law 4 years later.

1998 – Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is arrested in London on a murder extradition warrant.

BLUF
Now, I don’t think for a minute that Biden is “directing all of this” — he’s getting directed by his staff. But even CBS is now throwing him under the bus by questioning his age and ability to do the job. You know how bad the interview truly was when that’s the takeaway.

More on Disastrous Biden Interview: Scott Pelley Has to Help Him Finish Sentence, Says President ‘Tired’

I wrote earlier about a couple of the teaser clips from the “60 Minutes” interview with Joe Biden.

Those were bad, but the complete interview was even worse.

First, we should note that there was a little bit of water-carrying for Joe Biden with host Scott Pelley saying that the president was fitting them into his busy schedule on Thursday.

Biden had his 10 a.m. daily briefing and a 4:30 meeting where he just had to sit and listen to CEOs, how is that busy? Maybe it’s “busy” for an 80-year-old who has so many issues. But that’s why he shouldn’t even be there.

Biden seemed completely at sea throughout the interview, and so old.

Pelley asked if he could foresee U.S. troops involved in the Israeli war. Notice his answer: it wasn’t “no.”

It was “I don’t think it’s necessary” because “Israel has one of the finest fighting forces in the country.” Um, Joe? Israel is its own country, it’s not part of the U.S., what are you even saying here? In what country?

Then he threw Israel under the bus with this confusing remark, saying they should not reoccupy Gaza, that he thought that would be a “big mistake.” Funny, that’s just what Iran was hoping Joe would say, and there he is right on cue. You can see him struggling to answer this question.

Pelley asks what was his message to “Hezbollah and its backer Iran.” Biden’s response wouldn’t exactly send fear down any bad actor’s back, and Pelley even had to finish his thought for him.

I’m sure Iran is quaking in their boots right now.

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Suzanne Somers, ‘Three’s Company’ actress, dead at 76

Suzanne Somers, the actress who lit up the small screen on “Three’s Company” and one of TV’s most iconic fitness pitchwomen, has died, according to a statement provided to CNN from her longtime publicist R. Couri Hay. She was 76.

“Suzanne Somers passed away peacefully at home in the early morning hours of October 15th. She survived an aggressive form of breast cancer for over 23 years,” Hay wrote in a statement shared on behalf of the actress’ family.

The statement said Somers “was surrounded by her loving husband Alan, her son Bruce, and her immediate family.”

“Her family was gathered to celebrate her 77th birthday on October 16th. Instead, they will celebrate her extraordinary life, and want to thank her millions of fans and followers who loved her dearly,” the statement added.

All your printers are belong to us

Background checks for printer purchases

New bill intro by Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar, A-8132, Requires a criminal history background check for the purchase of a three-dimensional printer capable of creating firearms; prohibits sale to a person who would be disqualified on the basis of criminal history from being granted a license to possess a firearm.

From the bill memorandum:

Three-dimensionally printed firearms, a type of untraceable ghost gun, can be built by anyone using an $150 three-dimensional printer.

Three-dimensional printed guns are growing more prevalent each year. There were 100 taken off the streets of New York City in 2019. That number skyrocketed to 637 in 2022.

Concurrently, ghost gun shootings have risen 1,000% across the nation. Currently, three-dimensional printers allow people to make, buy, sell, and use untraceable guns without any background checks.

This bill will require a background check so that three-dimensional printed firearms do not get in the wrong hands.

US death toll in Hamas terror attack rises to 29, 16 unaccounted for: State Department

The State Department said Saturday that 29 Americans were murdered by Hamas terrorists during their brutal Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel — adding two more US citizens to the tragic toll.

Another 16 Americans — 15 citizens and one legal permanent resident — remain missing, a State Department official told CNN.

“The US government is working around the clock to determine their whereabouts, and is working with the Israeli government on every aspect of the hostage crisis,” the official said.

The slain Americans have not been officially identified, but several families — including that of Cindy Flash, 67, a Minnesota native who had advocated for Palestinian rights — have come forward to speak of their lost loved ones.

Flash and her Israeli-born husband Igal were slain in the safe room of their home in the Kfar Aza kibbutz, her daughter Keren said.

“They were good people,” Keren said of her parents.

Danielle Waldman and boyfriend Noam
Danielle Waldman, 24, was one of 29 American citizens killed by Hamas in the Oct. 7 terror attack. She and her boyfriend Noam died together while attempting to flee the carnage at an outdoor music festival.
Eyal Waldman/Facebook

“They fought for other people’s rights and other people’s voices.”

Danielle Waldman, 24, a native of Palo Alto, Calif., was one of 260 victims killed at the Nova Festival, a “rave for peace” near the Gaza border.

Her father Eyal Waldman tracked Danielle’s phone and Apple Watch to discover the bullet-riddled car where she and her friends died.

“Each and every one that met her has loved her,” Waldman said.

“She’s done nothing wrong and nothing bad to anyone.”

October 15

1066 – Following the death of Harold at the Battle of Hastings, Edgar the Ætheling is proclaimed King of England by the Witan, but is never crowned before William of Normandy claims the throne.

1529 – The First Siege of Vienna ends with Austrian troops routing the invading Ottoman forces.

1582 – The states of the Holy Roman Empire replace the Julian Calendar with the Gregorian version

1783 – The Montgolfier brother’s hot air balloon makes the first ascent with a human pilot; Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier aboard.

1793 – Queen Marie Antoinette of France is tried and convicted of treason.

1815 – Napoleon begins his second and final exile on the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean.

1863 – The Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley, sinks during a second test run, this time killing its inventor along with the rest of the 8 man crew.

1878 – The Edison Electric Light Company is incorporated in New York.

1917 – Margaretha “Mata Hari” MacLeod is executed by France for espionage.

1928 – The German airship D-LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin completes its first trans-Atlantic flight, landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, United States.

1939 – The New York Municipal Airport, later renamed LaGuardia Airport is dedicated.

1945 – The former premier of Vichy France, Pierre Laval, is executed for treason.

1946 – Hermann Göring escapes the hangman by taking cyanide.

1954 – Hurricane Hazel strikes the eastern seaboard of North America, killing 95 people and causing massive floods as far north as Toronto.

1966 – The Black Panther Party is created by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale.

1979 – A coup d’état in El Salvador overthrows President Carlos Humberto Romero and starts the Salvadoran Civil War.

1997 – NASA  launches the Cassini–Huygens probe from Cape Canaveral to study Saturn, its rings and moons.

2006 – A 6.7 magnitude earthquake in Kiholo Bay, Hawaii, causing a small tsunami, over $200 million in property damage and injuring a few people.

2018 – 13 year old Jayme Closs is kidnapped from her Barron, Wisconsin home after her parents are murdered by Jake Patterson

Biden Admin Gave Hamas $75 Million While Knowing Terror Attack Was Imminent

Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration gave Hamas $75 million in early October, just days before the group launched an assault against Israel and after learning that a terrorist attack was imminent.

The aid was pushed through in a quiet move bypassing Republican obstructionism.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken approved the release of $75 million in funding for Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Blinken diverted the cash to Hamas just hours before the funds were set to be redistributed elsewhere.

The move was hushed through with little attention in early October, just days before Hamas launched its terrorist attacks against Israel, slaughtering, raping, and kidnapping hundreds of innocent civilians.

However, the funding was approved after the U.S. government learned that Hamas was likely planning an upcoming terror attack against Israel.

Blinken’s decision came after months of pressure from Democrat lawmakers and dozens of civil society groups.

They warned that blocking the aid would create a humanitarian disaster for over one million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

The aid had been held up by Republican Senators who were pushing back against the release of the funds.

Senator Jim Risch and Representative Michael McCaul, the top Republicans on the Senate and House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committees, have since late July been blocking the State Department from providing funds to the UN’s Palestine refugee agency (UNRWA).

After he assumed office, Biden reversed President Donald Trump’s efforts to squeeze off funding to the UN agency and Hamas.

UNRWA thanked Blinken for the funds that will sustain its food distribution through early 2024.

“Thank you [Blinken] for providing $75 million in food assistance to Palestine refugees in Gaza!” said UNRWA

“This generous support from the American people will allow UNRWA to continue this critical aspect of its humanitarian and human development work through the end of Q1 2024.”

Meanwhile, more details have emerged the Biden admin also sent $33.7 million from the American Rescue Plan.

The spending bill was meant for Americans to combat Covid during the pandemic.

It was sent to a Palestinian relief organization that has previously been accused of providing safe harbor to terrorists in Gaza.

3 dead, 3 injured after shooting at Denver party

DENVER (KDVR) — Three people died and three others were injured after a shooting early Saturday morning, according to the Denver Police Department.

The shooting occurred in the 12400 block of East 39th Avenue. Around 1:37 a.m., officers responded and found a victim suffering from apparent gunshot wounds.

That victim was pronounced dead on the scene.

According to police, it was later found out that five additional victims were self-transported to local hospitals.

Two of those victims were pronounced dead at the hospital. Three others were expected to survive. All of the victims were adults, according to DPD.

The preliminary investigation indicated there was a party at an industrial storefront. According to DPD, there was evidence of shots from at least two firearms at the storefront.

“The party was happening in one of those units and we don’t know yet what escalated to the gunshot,” Matt Clark with the Denver Police Department told FOX31. “We have evidence guns were shot both inside and outside of the unit and multiple guns were involved.”

Investigators were working to determine the circumstances that led up to the shooting and who was involved.

“A combination of people running, and fleeing the scene. There was a lot of vehicles. Probably about 25 vehicles in the area,” Juan Munoz, whose video camera captured the end of the shooting told FOX31.

No arrests had been made as of 10 p.m.

Burning Down (The Economic) House?
Food Prices UP 20% Under Bidenomics, Credit Card Delinquencies Now Higher Than During Covid As Credit Card Debt Grows To All-time High To Cope With Inflation

Is Biden trying to burn down the economic house? Under Bidenomics, America’s middle class and low wage workers are suffering from a wild, wild life in terms of inflation.

First, food prices are up 20% since December 2020. Talk about destruction of middle class wealth!

That is in addition to gasoline prices are up 64% under Biden while rent growth is up 252%. Well, Biden waived through millions of illegal immigrants and rent had to rise. Biden and Washington DC’s broken borders is Livin’ La Vida Loco.

To cope with inflation (that Paul Krugman claims is over but the last inflation report showed that the tinders of inflation are hard to extinguish), consumers have turned to credit cards to survive. In fact, credit cards have expanded 38% since April 2021 despite rapidly rising interest rates. And credit card delinquency rates are rising and are now above Covid-era economic shutdown levels.

Despite Krugman and Yellen’s screaming that inflation has been crushed, US household are anticipating FASTER inflation. To paraphrase the Emperor of Austria from “Amadeus,” “You are passionate Krugman and Yellen, but you do not persuade.”

And Billions Biden has just recorded the third largest deficit in history.

Allahu Akbar: It couldn’t happen here…

Admittedly, I grew up in the golden age for Jews in America. Anti-Semitism was muted; Jews were respected for their family values and love of education. In fact in past presidential elections, candidates delved deep into their genetic inheritances to divine a Jewish gene or two.

The existence of the modern state of Israel, a Jewish state but unequivocally also a democracy, gave Jews existential pride, a psychological homeland to which they could move if so desired, and a sense of protection and invincibility.

Globally, Jews stood taller. For those stuck in Jewish-unfriendly geographic locations, rescue if things turned really ugly, was a reality.

Israel’s creation – by necessity a warrior state – also morphed from a small agrarian economy to a leader in start-ups, high tech, and constant innovation. Moreover, its commitment to rule of law provides more legal rights for Arab citizens than those given in Arab states. Specifically, Israel gives property rights to Muslim second wives – a right unheard of on the Arab street where so many women are still viewed as chattel.

As Arab money and Arab propaganda gained traction in Democrat-run inner cities, in the prisons, and the mainstream (legacy) media, Israel’s truth of a progressive society, democracy, and an inherent military ideology of not harming civilian non-combatants, was muted and ultimately destroyed.

So, how did it come to pass that Israel is falsely compared to Apartheid South Africa or a “colonizer” and a false moral equivalency between Israelis and Palestinians is bruited about from American universities – especially the ivies?

The distortion of historic truth has been fueled by superior marketing by the United Nations, which is anti-Semitic and anti-American and by some African-Americans, who were assisted in their civil rights struggle by American Jews, but now feel their oppression is synonymous with that of the Palestinians. It also came from the university woke administrations and professors, along with the stark ignorance of our youth, and the larger population of Muslim converts and immigrants whose mantra is “Kill the Jews.”

All of the above have either not been educated about history in the area, or deliberately distort it. Some hate the Jews because Israel uncomfortably reminds them of their own failures, as George Gilder noted in his best-seller, The Israel Test.

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The Guardian floored that Gen Z isn’t more anti-gun

As a member of Gen X, I look at the younger generation as they’re portrayed in the media and have concerns. Luckily, I know that generations aren’t monolithic. Just as the Baby Boomers weren’t universally hippies and my generation wasn’t all building dot com businesses.

With Gen Z, I expect much the same.

So what does this have to do with guns? Well, it seems The Guardian is floored that a generation that has dealt with mass shootings isn’t completely freaked out over guns.

In the US, Gen Z grew up doing active shooter drills and watching school massacres and other acts of violence unfold on TV. So it’s perhaps unsurprising that many of them have been high-profile faces in the movement for gun reform. But at the same time, research shows many young people, like those Alvarado works with, remain open to – even interested in – gun ownership. What connects those two threads, experts say, is shared trauma and exposure to violence…

While one response to that sense of dread has been to join the gun violence prevention movement, another is to embrace firearms. The 2023 Peril study showed that about one-third of youth under 18 believe they are safer with guns than without them. 39% of participants reported having easy access to a gun, and about half of those answers were from young people who purchased a firearm themselves.

In another study from 2019, 42% of boys and men ages 13-21 reported they will likely own a gun in the future, while 76% of all respondents agreed that gun ownership makes a home safer. And between 2002 and 2019, rates of gun ownership among teens rose by 41%. During the pandemic, one-third of people who purchased guns were between 18 and 29 years old.

These swings coincide with rising ownership among demographics not historically linked to firearms, like women, Latinos and Asian Americans. In the latter two groups, new gun owners say that they are motivated to carry by the increased threat of racist extremism.

“Gun ownership has diversified dramatically,” said Kelly Drane, research director at Giffords Law Center in San Francisco.

Of course, many on the anti-gun side simply cannot fathom the idea that people might actually embrace gun rights to any degree, especially in the face of threats of violence.

The thing is, though, that’s not an irrational response to trauma as many people think. It’s completely rational.

Gen Z understands that violence is an unfortunate part of our lives, which means that it’s not going to go away with platitudes and protests. Sure, we can do that, but we also need to face the fact that gun control doesn’t make criminals stop doing bad things.

If you believe someone wants to hurt you, it’s completely rational to want to be able to use violence in an effort to defend yourself.

I’m actually glad see Gen Z stand up for defending themselves.

What I’m not glad to see is the gaslighting, an attempt to pretend that it’s not that they see the world as it is and is instead a trauma response.

Rationality is traumatizing, apparently.

AIDAN JOHNSTON: Israel Needs A Second Amendment

A day after Hamas terrorists paraglided across the border from Gaza into Israel, trucked machine gun-toting killers into a music festival, mowed down families and took women, children, and grandmothers hostage, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir announced a series of actions to loosen Israel’s strict gun control laws.

The minister announced his intent to “allow as many citizens as possible to arm themselves and protect themselves and their environment when necessary.”

Of course, with videos of terrorists kicking in doors in an Israeli village near the border and desecrating the dead bodies of babies and teenagers, it’s not hard to understand why someone would make such a decision. And as an American, I can confidently say our Founding Fathers sure understood.

The individual right of the people to keep and bear arms is “necessary to the security of a free state.”

But as the death toll rises and terrorists are still on the loose, one must also ask: is the Israeli government doing too little, too late?

Just after Russia invaded Ukraine, the country repealed its gun control laws, enacted a national right to carry and started passing out machine guns.

Ukraine waited until after it was invaded by a nuclear world superpower, and we asked the same question.

Lucky for Ukrainians, the remarkable shift in firearms policy helped the country hang on while the United States and other allies prepared military aid.

While Israel is also purchasing thousands of machine guns and handing them out now, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spent the last few years confiscating guns from local civilian security forces.

So, while Hamas terrorists invaded with machine guns, grenades and missiles, these Israeli gun owners were forced to fight back with only a single handgun and 50 rounds of ammunition each.

According to one gun owner, “the IDF took our rifles recently, they left us with just a few. We repelled a Hamas commando terror cell with just pistols.”

Gun control left self-defenders outgunned while hundreds of completely disarmed Israelis were tortured, raped and murdered by vicious terrorists in this surprise attack.

And while the new changes in Israel’s Firearms Licensing Division are intended to help self-defenders held up by bureaucracy and paperwork, Gun Owners of America found the application portal offline and “unavailable,” leaving only a message from the National Forms Service stating “we apologize for the inconvenience.”

Even if the website worked, a newly eligible applicant would still have “to undergo a telephone interview” and may have to wait up to “a week” for approval.

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Cautionary Tale in an Alabama Forest: When in a Gunfight, Don’t Hesitate

On August 14, 2022, Adam Simjee and his longtime girlfriend, Mikayla Paulus, were on a road trip through wild Alabama country before returning to college.

They decided to help a woman who appeared to have had a vehicle breakdown. The woman, Yasmine Hider, was planning to rob them or worse. Adam was a dedicated Second Amendment supporter. He had tucked a concealed pistol in his waistband because he was suspicious of the circumstances. After Adam and Mikayla had been working on the broke-down vehicle for an hour without success, Hider pulled out a handgun and ordered them to drop their cell phones, empty their pockets, and give up their bank and cell phone passwords. Then she marched them into the forest. Adam waited for an opportunity to draw his firearm.

In situations such as this, the assailant is often momentarily distracted. From abc3340.com:

“Adam had his gun on him the whole time because he said, ‘This is how people get robbed,’” she said, “So I was just waiting on him to use it.”

Paulus described what happened next, “Adam pulled out his gun and told her to get on the ground and that’s when she started messing around with her gun. It jammed once but they both shot at each other and she was shot a few times and he was shot only once.”

 Law and Crime supply a few more details. From Law and Crime:

At one point, HIDER looked away and lowered her guard, Victim #1 pulled his pistol from his waistband and ordered HIDER to drop her weapon. HIDER said, “Are you serious?” She cocked her gun and started firing, and Victim # 1 returned fire simultaneously while falling to the ground. While on the ground, Victim #1 said, “You shot me,” and fired one last time at HIDER. After the shooting stopped, HIDER said, “Why did you shoot? It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

In situations where someone has the drop on you and is momentarily distracted, there is a limited time for your action to beat their reaction, in the neighborhood of 3/4 of a second.

In this case, there seems to have been a little more time, as Hider is said to have answered Adam Simjee and taken some action with her firearm before both started to fire.

When someone threatens your life, conversing with them is not a good idea. This has been acknowledged in popular movies. In The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Tuco says, “When you have to shoot, shoot, don’t talk.”

John Wayne, in The Shootist, says his advantage is he does not hesitate when it is time to shoot, essentially saying: most men hesitate. I don’t. Clip from The Shootist: Most men aren’t willing.

Adam Simjee showed good tactical awareness by waiting for the right moment. Then he hesitated. Shots were exchanged. He was killed. Most people do not want to take a life. At short range, it is not uncommon for both participants in a gunfight to be hit or for both participants to be missed. Hesitation can be deadly. Simjee expected compliance. Instead, he received a deadly bullet.

Life is complex. Uncertainty is common.  In the tragic case of the good Samaritan college students in the Alabama forest, hesitation was a deadly mistake.