Estimated reading time: 12 minutes
From Bonnie and Clyde to Anwar al-Awlaki, this hard-edged piece asks a nasty modern question: when does deadly force stop being controversial and start feeling inevitable?
Bonnie, Clyde, and the Old-School Case for Violent Justice
On 23 May 1934, a group of lawmen led by Texas Ranger Frank Hamer machinegunned Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow to death on a rural road in Bienville Parish in rural Louisiana. Their villainous gang of cutthroats had murdered nine police officers and four civilians during the course of their well-publicized reign of terror. At the time of his death, Barrow had sixteen outstanding warrants.
As near as we can tell, Hamer didn’t waste too much effort trying to detain or confront the two star-crossed psychopaths. Once the car came into range, they just shot it all to pieces, ambush-style. By modern standards, this action violated countless law enforcement and constitutional dictates. However, at the time, Hamer and his crew were rightly venerated as heroes.
Modern America, Violent Crime, and the Limits of Restraint
On 22 August 2025, a paranoid schizophrenic named DeCarlos Brown took out a folding knife and stabbed a 23-year-old Ukrainian immigrant named Iryna Zarutska to death while she sat in a Charlotte light rail car playing on her phone. Brown had been arrested and released at least fourteen times previously. He later admitted to not even knowing his victim. Every decent cop and concealed carrier in America wishes they were there that day.
I’m all about treating those with mental illness humanely and fairly. However, that guy just can’t be walking around mingling with the rest of us. I wouldn’t have been unduly broken up had he not survived to reach the jail.
Iryana’s death will no doubt provoke yet another firestorm between Left and Right in America. The mayor of Charlotte used the event to demand funding for more cops. I do love me some cops, but that’s not the problem here. This scumbag had already been locked up fourteen times. The Charlotte fuzz have been doing their jobs. Leftists just won’t keep bad guys in jail. Also, good luck telling me I can’t carry a gun next time I wander into some crowded urban space. I fear that ship has sailed.
The Philosophy of Killing Bad Men Before They Kill Again
It has been said that our criminal justice system is the second-worst on Planet Earth. It is simply that everybody else ties for first. The point of all of this sordid stuff is that some folks obviously just need killing. It’s in the specific details where things get murky.
I can be pretty tough on the Clintons and Obamas of the world. I covet a firm hand in the White House myself, and these two guys didn’t seem to have it. However, I’ll give credit where credit is due. Obama chose to kill Osama bin Laden when he had the opportunity. Kudos for that. He also took a chance and whacked Anwar al-Awlaki in a drone strike back in 2011. A great many people took umbrage with that one. Speaking solely for myself, I’m not sure al-Awlaki will really be missed.
Who was Anwar al-Awlaki, the American Jihadist?
Anwar Nasser Abdulla al-Awlaki was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, in 1971 to Yemeni parents. While growing up, he split his time between Yemen and the US. He fancied himself an Islamic imam despite having few, if any, theological qualifications. Regardless, there were still those who listened to him.
Al-Awlaki earned a degree in Civil Engineering from Colorado State and also spent time training with the mujahideen in Afghanistan. He later earned a master’s degree in Education Leadership from San Diego State and worked on a doctorate in Human Resource Development from George Washington University. This guy knew America and Americans quite well and still hated us all anyway.
From Moderate Image to Open Jihadist Propagandist
For a time at least, al-Awlaki seemed like he might actually be one of the Good Guys. Some saw him as a moderate. He was once invited to speak at the US Department of Defense. He also vilified the 911 terrorists, saying, “There is no way that the people who did this could be Muslim, and if they claim to be Muslim, then they have perverted their religion.” Over time, however, all that seemed to change.
Al-Awlaki eventually came to despise almost everything about the country of his birth. He spoke out vociferously against US government policy and was connected to Major Nidal Hasan, the worthless sack of skin who shot up Fort Hood back in 2009. Al-Awlaki called for jihad or holy war to be waged against the United States at every opportunity. For these sins, as well as many others, al-Awlaki made it onto President Obama’s CIA kill list in April of 2010.
Inside Obama’s CIA Kill List and the Disposition Matrix
The CIA kill list is really not something any reasonable person might wish to be on. The official appellation is the Disposition Matrix. This is a formal database that the US government uses to track really, really bad guys who wish to do us harm. It replaced the former system of dual scrutiny overseen by both the National Security Council and the Pentagon.
The Disposition Matrix was Obama’s baby. Under his watch, it became a permanent component of US policy. Things move fast in the Information Age. President Obama felt he needed the power to respond quickly if ever these rancid personalities peeked above ground long enough to get their heads blown off. There was little, if any, due process in the traditional sense. As a result, some felt that it might not be such a good idea.
It’s not like this list was some closely-held secret. Al-Awlaki knew he was on it. So did his family. In the summer of 2010, al-Awlaki’s dad coordinated with the ACLU to file a lawsuit trying to force the CIA to take his son off the list. An ACLU spokesman said, “The United States is not at war in Yemen, and the government doesn’t have a blank check to kill terrorism suspects wherever they are in the world. Among the arguments we’ll be making is that, outside actual war zones, the authority to use lethal force is narrowly circumscribed, and preserving the rule of law depends on keeping this authority narrow.”
The ACLU, the Constitution, and a Very Selective Outrage
I don’t know where you stand on the ACLU as an organization. I’m a big fan of the US Constitution myself and will gladly lend an ear to most anybody who purports to defend it. Where the ACLU falls catastrophically short, in my opinion, is that they tend to pick and choose what parts of the Constitution they take seriously.
The ACLU will move heaven and earth to defend free speech among some of the most repugnant personalities. However, they just give the 2d amendment a pass. Their official position is that the Second Amendment relates solely to militia service and is not an individual right. They fundamentally disagree with the Supreme Court’s interpretation in Heller. In my view, at least, that negates any credibility they might have had. I mean, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” is actually in the document. Regardless, the al-Awlaki lawsuit went nowhere.
The First Drone Strike Missed, the Second One Did Not
On 5 May 2011, US forces launched a drone attack against a car al-Awlaki was riding in while in Yemen. Two al-Qaeda terrorists were killed, but al-Awlaki escaped. Killing people with drones is admittedly an inexact science.
On 30 September of that same year, al-Awlaki was transitioning from the Al Jawf Governate in Yemen to the Ma’rib area by motor vehicle when he and his buddies stopped to grab a little breakfast en route. While outside, someone spotted a drone circling overhead. Al-Awlaki and his mates jumped back into their vehicle and took off. However, a hellfire missile tops out at Mach 1.3. Al-Awlaki never stood a chance. He was blown to smithereens alongside another proper villain named Samir Khan, himself an American born in Saudi Arabia.
The Hellfire Missile That Made the Hit Possible
I have a friend who was one of five military officers who first strapped an AGM-114 Hellfire missile onto a Predator surveillance drone. His story about how that came about is frankly mesmerizing. It’s not just every day you meet somebody who, legit, changed the world.
Hellfire stands for helicopter-launched fire and forget. This laser-guided, solid-fuel missile weighs about 100 pounds and was originally designed for use on attack helicopters. My friend and his mates realized that two of them would fit nicely underneath the wings of a Predator. Some modern variants also utilize radar guidance. The MQ-9 Reaper drone will pack as many as eight Hellfires at a time.
The AGM-114R-9X, also known as the “Ginsu Missile,” doesn’t even have a warhead. This diabolical little monster sports a handful of hardened steel blades that pop out just before impact and slice and dice whatever is in its path. You can read about it here:
Abu Khayr al-Masri and the Ginsu Missile.
The Fallout of Killing an American with a Drone Strike
Certain folks came unglued over the targeted killing of two American citizens by the Joint Special Operations Command and the CIA. For his part, President Obama said, “The death of Awlaki is a major blow to Al-Qaeda’s most active operational affiliate. He took the lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent Americans … and he repeatedly called on individuals in the United States and around the globe to kill innocent men, women and children … Al-Qaeda and its affiliates will find no safe haven anywhere in the world.” Of the decision he made to kill al-Awlaki, Obama said it was, “an easy one.”
I freely acknowledge that the power to kill almost anybody in the world from the comfort of your living room has great potential for abuse. However, I am reminded of these stories where folks get attacked outside of bars at 2 a.m. Nothing good ever happens outside a bar at 2 a.m. Stop being a terrorist, and chances are nobody will blow you up with an anti-tank missile when you pull over for breakfast on a nice cross-country drive.
As I type these words, President Trump just blew up his second Venezuelan drug boat in international waters. The Left is predictably screaming, but it was a drug boat. It sported multiple outboard motors, and there were big bags of drugs floating about in the aftermath. Nothing screams, “You really should have found a real job!” like getting pulverized on the open seas while trying to smuggle dope into America.
I don’t trust my government, like at all. However, as we have seen in Ukraine, stuff like this is clearly the wave of the future. Disposition Matrices and wandering drones dispensing death across national boundaries are unfortunate aspects of our modern world. We’d best just stop whining and figure it all out.
Related Reads from GunsAmerica Digest
- Abu Khayr al-Masri and the Ginsu Missile
- Henry Tandey: The Man Who Spared Adolf Hitler
- More from GunsAmerica Digest
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Will is still trying to figure out what he really wants to be when he grows up. However, shooting guns and claiming it was work seemed like a pretty sweet hustle. As a result, Will serendipitously transformed an avocation into a vocation.
Raised in the Mississippi Delta, Will flew UH1H, OH58A/C, CH47D and AH1S helicopters operationally as an Army Aviator. He is SCUBA-qualified and has parachuted out of perfectly good airplanes at 3 o’clock in the morning. Will has summited Mount McKinley, Alaska, six times…always at the controls of an Army helicopter, which is the only way sensible folk climb mountains.
Will has delivered sixty babies and occasionally wrung human blood out of his socks. He is married to his high school sweetheart and has three awesome adult children. Turn-ons include vintage German machineguns, flying his sexy-cool RV6A airplane, Count Chocula cereal and the movie “Aliens.”
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