Albisu faces charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after allegedly brandishing a firearm at wedding guests in 2023. According to defense expert Bill Engler, “This is when he pulls the gun out, when he is backed up against the bar,” highlighting the moment Albisu felt compelled to act.

Florida judge looks through a VR headset to put himself in the defendant's shoes (self-defense scenario): pic.twitter.com/ehaTD4LCMz

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 2, 2025

Albisu’s defense is based on self-defense. His attorney, Ken Padowitz, described the chaotic scene at the venue, explaining that Albisu’s wife and son were assaulted, with a DJ allegedly throwing a chair that injured the event planner’s wrist.

“They were able to get out, glass shattered everywhere, get out of this wedding facility, and wake up my client, Mike, who was sleeping, and he was told what happened at his wedding facility,” Padowitz recounted. He further explained that upon learning of the situation, Albisu instructed his wife to call emergency services and then took immediate action to protect his staff, property, and family from what he believed to be a dangerous situation caused by intoxicated guests. His goal was to deescalate the tension and end the party peacefully.

An artist used an Oculus Quest 2 VR headset to visualize the defendant’s experience. Padowitz emphasized the importance of this method, stating, “It may be the first time in the United States that virtual reality was admitted into a criminal hearing,” marking a potentially revolutionary approach to courtroom evidence presentation.

Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, enacted in 2005, removes the duty to retreat before using deadly force in self-defense. This law allows individuals to use force, including deadly force, if they reasonably believe it is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to themselves or others, or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony. The law applies anywhere a person has a legal right to be, not just in their home, under what’s known as the “castle doctrine.” It provides immunity from criminal prosecution and civil liability if the use of force is deemed justified. However, this does not apply if the person using force was engaged in criminal activity or was the initial aggressor.

This technology uses images or videos taken when the event happened. If there’s enough data to recreate the incident accurately, it would put jurors or the judge in the defendant’s shoes.

This type of VR differs from what AI generates from some user’s input. It’s not as much of an “interpretation” as a 3D rendering based on crime scene evidence. In this case, the artist had existing images and videos to work off of.

The prosecutor or defense attorney could make objections just like any other evidence before the jury ever sees it, and not all video or testimony is allowed now. Evidentiary hearings are where this would get sorted out.

This is a promising new technology that should progress rapidly, and its development will be fascinating to watch.

After months of work, I’ve wrapped up my undercover part, and starting Tuesday, I will share what I’ve learned about foreign nationals who have entered our country.

Here’s a quick list of some recent notable events:

• Yesterday, Chicago scanner traffic posted by SpotXNews reported, “Over 100 migrants attacking security, security are off duty, police officers.”
• Police have arrested over 60 offenders in Oak Brook, IL, at a single mall for robbery.
• Yesterday, migrants threw bottles and other objects at NYPD during an arrest at a shelter.
• While trying to make an arrest, multiple attackers beat NYPD officers in Times Square and were then released.
• Over the weekend, four men in Chicago strangled and robbed a guy on the train.

In a sanctuary city, police can’t arrest someone based on an immigration violation.
Former NYPD Chief of Department Ken Corey told the NY Times that it is nearly impossible to know the numbers because they can’t ask about immigration status, so police do not track these crimes separately in many locations.

Multiple sources have informed me that most of these people prefer to use weapons with points. It’s important to recognize the serious threat that homemade objects like sharp knives pose.

These objects can be extremely difficult to defend against, and taking proactive measures to avoid confrontation is the best way to stay safe. One first-hand account I have is of a man chasing me with a shiv while I was taking pictures, including his. Fortunately, I was faster than he was.

Crime data should include immigration status so authorities can get a handle on how bad this is.

Self-defense laws vary by state, but generally, you have the right to defend yourself if you reasonably believe that you or someone else is in imminent danger of serious harm or death.

In this video, it appears someone is getting out of the back passenger side door right before the driver walks around the truck with something in his hands. The person in the second vehicle pulls out his firearm and points it at the man coming at him.

Would the man being attacked have been justified if he had pulled the trigger?

Now, let’s consider the scenario where someone is trying to break into your car while you’re inside with the door closed. In most states, you would likely be justified in using a firearm for self-defense if you genuinely believe that your life is at risk.

Try to safely de-escalate the situation or drive away, because avoidance is always the best option. A car is a powerful weapon, and sometimes the best defense is a good offense or, in this case, a good defensive driving maneuver.

But remember that every situation is different, and it’s up to you to use your best judgment, but using a firearm should always be a last resort.

Using a firearm in self-defense during a road rage incident is a serious matter, and you should always be aware of the potential consequences. If that bullet misses, it could hit an innocent bystander.

Always consider the potential consequences and try to de-escalate the situation if possible. Ultimately, it comes down to means, opportunity, and intent.

Stay safe on the roads, and don’t let road rage get the best of you or your trigger finger.

Any time there is a chance of a confrontation or you’re in a risky situation, leave yourself a reactionary gap. The perpetrator cornered the officer in this incident, and she got lucky.

This was in February 2021 in Mason, Ohio. The man survived, and the deputy did not get shot during the attack.

The minimum distance required between an individual and a potential threat is the concept of a “reactionary gap.” This space is very important because it gives you time to respond to an attack.

All kinds of factors impact how big of a reactionary gap you should have, including the physical condition of the people involved, the type of weapons, and your setting. Keep this concept in mind and keep a safe distance in potentially dangerous situations.

People in some cities, like Denver and New York, have recommended sending social workers to perform welfare checks instead of police officers.

How is a dispatcher supposed to know when a “non-violent” call can become a violent encounter?

If they can accurately predict that, I want them to buy me some lottery tickets.

The driver says, “You’re disrupting traffic idiots, you can’t do that, it’s against the law,” and multiple people are yelling, “Run them over!”

He was obviously angered, and they’re lucky this didn’t escalate. It’s only a matter of time before this boils over.

Protesters blocked off the Holland Tunnel, Brooklyn Bridge, and Manhattan Bridge all at the same time. Unlike many recent protests, law enforcement stepped in and removed demonstrators.

Angry NYC driver shoves Palestine protesters blocking the Williamsburg bridge during rush hour traffic this morning out of his way

“You’re disrupting traffic idiots, you can’t do that, it’s against the law” pic.twitter.com/0bQLsAgUHN

— Elad Eliahu (@elaadeliahu) January 8, 2024

He was clearly at his breaking point, and had someone pushed back, I have no doubt it would have ended differently.

What happens when a GROUP of drivers gets out and reacts to the protesters?

What happens if the person being blocked is a less “diplomatic” driver?

I’ve watched these groups up close and in countless videos. In reality, the makeup of these groups falls into 3 categories; fortunately, this was what I call “type 3,” the least aggressive.

I’ve already been embedded with group “type 2,” and this is a ticking time bomb.

We always talk about options, and if you watch carefully, you’ll see a protester trying to open his car door before he gets out. I understand the anger and frustration, but keep your doors locked and your windows up. Don’t get caught off guard.

If you get into this position, avoid letting them bait you, and getting out of your vehicle would not be my first choice. This group was out to annoy people, but some have no problem ratcheting things up a notch.

A huge part of self-defense is avoiding conflict. Contrary to the media hype over mass shootings, most defensive gun use is due to more personal conflicts such as assaults and robberies. There are no exact figures on this, just statistical analysis. I’ve saved the most important part for last.

Jim Mattis is a retired Marine Corps general and former Secretary of Defense who once said, “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.” Although originally intended for Marines interacting with civilians in a war zone, we can still draw valuable lessons from it and apply them to our daily lives. Remember, our goal in defending ourselves is not to “kill” someone but to “stop the threat,” but his guidance still applies.

Situational Awareness Prevents You from Being an Easy Target

The first point is easy. People who look like they are aware of their surroundings are less likely to become victims. If you’re walking through an urban area or even a shopping mall with your earbuds in and your head down, you’re not making yourself invisible; you’re making yourself an easy target. Keep your head up. Look around. Make brief, but definite, eye contact. Walk with purpose. Do not look like a victim. Predators prey on the weak, so don’t look weak.

Avoid Walking Through Unknown Groups

Avoid walking directly past or through groups of young men. I don’t care where you are in the world or what color someone’s skin is. Groups of idle young men have a lot of potential to be a threat. The more economically depressed the area is, the more likely that is to be true. Avoid such groups, but never make it obvious you’re doing so. If you can’t avoid it, follow the advice from the previous paragraph about not looking like an easy target.

Sitting Down in Public

Sitting down in a public place requires some careful consideration. Whenever possible, sit so you can see the door or the most open parts of the location you are in. If you sit in a booth, sit on the outside, not the inside. When you enjoy a good meal with good company, it’s easy to get lost in conversation, but being aware of your surroundings doesn’t require much effort.

Groups of Unknown People

Look at the people in groups, see who is coming and going, and be sure to notice if someone is approaching you well before they get there. If you’re in a coffee shop working on your laptop and otherwise have your head buried in something, just look up once in a while. Some of us do this naturally, and for some, it takes extra effort, but you can train yourself to do it with a little practice. Eventually, you won’t even notice you’re doing it. Oh, and don’t wear earbuds there either. In fact, never wear earbuds or headphones in public, ever.

Road Rage and Carjackings

You need to be more aware of what’s going on when you’re driving. Road rage and carjackings are always on the menu these days. When I strap on a seatbelt, I’ve gotten into the habit of lightly tucking my shirt in between my sidearm and my hip so that it’s accessible.

If someone jams on their brakes in front of you and gets out of their car to come toward you, they may or may not be a physical threat. It takes some training to know when and when not to pull your firearm, but the key to that decision-making process is, you guessed it, situational awareness. Don’t forget, your first option should always be to drive out of the attack.

There are plenty of videos that show angry people assaulting people in their cars. There are even more videos that show angry people just being angry without being an actual threat.

Stay Calm

The greatest lesson of all, when it comes to situational awareness, is to STAY CALM. If things get tense, if a potential threat starts to present itself, or even if an actual threat quickly emerges, you must remain calm. If you don’t, you’ll get tunnel vision and miss everything else going on around you. Freaking out has never solved anything. If you’re carrying a firearm and you panic, innocent people, including yourself, could get hurt.

However, gun violence is a serious matter, but boiling it down to “guns are the problem” ignores the multifaceted factors like mental health, socio-economic conditions, and any other blame you wish to put towards the use of a gun in the death or injury of another.

It’s not as black-and-white as that. That would be like blaming every vehicle for a vehicle accident just because someone you might have known died in one. It’s never been the “object” that committed the act. It was the “person” using the object!

The first gun, or proto-gun, appeared in China around 1000 AD. People have been killing each other for thousands of years, using various weapons such as sticks and stones. We, the “Human Race,” have always been the “cause and effect” of our own violence. Yes, guns have, no doubt, played their part, but they have also saved the lives of people.

Perhaps it’s the same reason when there is a “car accident,” we all slow down to see, knowing something terrible happened. We seem to crave the bad and don’t care about the good. Part of being a responsible “gun owner” is knowing that you have a tool that can cause serious injury, death, or save a life.

The bad people know it, too. That’s why they have theirs and why I have mine. “I train not to be a hero, but I refuse to be a victim.”

Tactical Firearms Training

If you’re a “tactical” shooter and you train in a tactical way, then the drills you go through on the range need some realistic tactical context incorporated into them.

If you’re a “competition shooter,” then you don’t. Unfortunately, instructors regularly teach competition shooting techniques as tactically sound, which they are not.

I sometimes wonder if the reason for that is because too many firearms instructors are competition shooters. Maybe not enough firearms instructors are instructing from an experienced-based background, i.e., they don’t know how to add that tactical context because they’ve never experienced it in real life. They are not always teaching others to do the right thing in real life, which should worry everyone.

Adding tactical context to your firearms training changes everything about that training. You quickly realize there are things you cannot do and some that don’t work.

Moving backward or up range with a firearm pointing downrange is not an operationally sound drill in a million years. It is a safety drill designed for the range ONLY. It provides no operational training value because you would never do it in real life.

You can be super-fast on the draw and run up and down a range all damn day. Still, unless you’re adding the appropriate tactical context that compliments the specific purpose or situation that you’re training for (armed robbery, carjacking, close-range engagements, close protection contact drills), then your training will never be realistic for the purpose you’re training for in the first place.

Mag dump pouches and Oakley gloves, hanging from a belt kit, flapping around like two squirrels fighting in a hessian sack, does not a gunfighter make.

In a world where unforeseen threats can lurk around any corner, being aware of your surroundings isn’t just a skill; it’s a superpower. Situational awareness forms the bedrock of effective self-defense, empowering individuals to anticipate, assess, and respond to potential dangers.

Understanding Situational Awareness

Situational awareness isn’t merely about observing; it’s about comprehending the broader context of your surroundings. It involves actively perceiving, processing, and understanding elements within your environment and recognizing how they might impact your safety.

At its core, situational awareness comprises three fundamental levels:

Perception

The ability to perceive your environment, including people, objects, and activities, while being mindful of potential threats or changes.

Comprehension

Process the information gathered and understand its relevance and implications regarding your safety and well-being.

Projection

You should anticipate future developments or potential threats based on your understanding and adjust your actions accordingly.

The Importance of Situational Awareness

In the realm of self-defense, situational awareness acts as a preemptive shield against potential risks. It allows you to spot and avoid potentially dangerous situations before they escalate, significantly reducing the likelihood of becoming a target.

Moreover, heightened awareness doesn’t just deter threats; it also gives you precious seconds to formulate an appropriate response if a situation unfolds unexpectedly. It’s about being proactive rather than reactive, which gives you a crucial advantage in navigating any scenario.

Criminals LOVE people who aren’t paying attention, especially women, as we are perceived as easy targets.

Situational Awareness Tips

Here are some situational awareness tips that you can easily and immediately put into practice:

Stay Off Your Phone

Being buried in your phone, texting, watching TikTok videos, etc., means you’re not paying attention at all. Attackers love this!

Back Into Parking Spots

It helps you get out much easier if you think you’re being followed or some sketchy-looking person approaches your car.

Keep Your Head On a Casual Swivel

Nonchalantly notice everything around you without looking paranoid or weird.

Walk With Confidence and Purpose

An insecure posture could make you a victim, as it indicates vulnerability.

Gameify situational awareness by noticing something specific, like the license plate game. When walking through the parking lot, notice, say, how many blue cars you see. Or, when you walk into a store, circle the perimeter and count how many exits you see. Looking for ways out of a location helps you create awareness and can also give you an idea of the closest escape route in an emergency.

Remember, it’s about being mindful and prepared, not paranoid. These proactive steps could keep you from being a victim and prevent you from using physical defense methods.

Have a safe, fun weekend, and remember these simple situational awareness tips while you’re out!

Tactics are subjective, and tactics depend upon blah de blah blah. I’ve heard it all, and I’m sure some of you guys have too.

Basic Defensive Tactic Fundamentals

But, as much as I agree with the statement that “Tactics depend upon blah de blah,” some basic fundamentals of tactics should never be screwed with in any way, shape, or form.

Get Away From the Line of Fire (move). Get off the X!

These are probably the two most disregarded or poorly applied aspects of tactical firearms training, and ironically, they are probably the two things that will help you survive a gunfight or armed criminal encounter.

And yet, within the firearms training industry, speed and accuracy seem to get everyone’s attention and get the most “likes” on TikTok. It’s that Tacticool mindset.

Speed And Accuracy Are Important, But

Before there is a collective explosion of heads, let me clarify: I agree that speed and accuracy are important. It’s just that I don’t think they are the two MOST important skills to have in a contact or gunfight.

Neither should cancel out the simple fact that getting out of the line of fire and taking cover behind something will ultimately save you quicker than standing still and giving your potential killer a higher percentage of success.

However, I acknowledge that standing your ground and engaging from where you already might be is the best choice in a confined space or zero-distance engagement. Particularly with multiple threats, because as you try to move or create distance, it might cause more problems than it solves.

Competition Shooting vs. Tactical Shooting

In addition, if you’re a competition shooter, where tactics play no part in the competition, then yeah, speed and accuracy are all that matter. Still, competition shooting styles, applied in a tactical environment where people shoot back, don’t work.

Applying tactics is HARD, but they’re supposed to be hard. They are hard for a reason.

The chances are that everyone who has gone through basic training in the military will have had tactics constantly drummed into them, particularly in using cover.

Using Cover Correctly Isn’t Easy – It’s a Ball-Breaker

From personal experience, using cover correctly is a ball-breaker. It is an ass-kicker. It is not a place to sit back and rest, nor is it a place from which to rest your weapon system. Using cover “correctly” (regardless of what kind of cover it is) requires constant movement from behind that cover; it’s the ball-breaker.

Bullets generally go in straight lines, yes? So why do so many people stand still? Why do so many people walk forward in a straight line? Or worse still, walk backward in a straight line? Either option keeps you in that line of fire.

Static Firearms Training

Personally, I do very little static training or static shooting because I don’t feel that it helps me achieve what I want, which is to stay alive.

Don’t get me wrong, I still group, and I still practice my draw, but I do it from a platform that more realistically reflects

• the situations I’ve been in and
• what I’m likely to be facing in the future.

Some people seem to have stuffed tactical firearms training in the closet under the stairs. I wonder if the reason is that it’s just easier to “train” without adherence to any tactical procedures to create a false positive of achievement.

Sound harsh? Yeah, I know it does, but when you apply realism to firearms training, the tactics required to survive whatever it is you’re training for start to become pretty clear.

Tactical Firearms Training Will Show Your Weaknesses

Injecting tactics into firearms training is a leveler. It humbles the person and acts as a magnifying glass into the soul of what you’re actually training for, and, more depressingly, it highlights the flaws in our firearms training, which results in the horrendous realization that we’re not as good as we thought we were.

When called upon to use that training, I cannot think of anything worse than finding out that we’re not as “trained” as we thought.

Applying a tactical framework to your training forces you out of your comfort zone. It forces you to confront that crappy realization that what and how you’re training might not work when faced with a real-life encounter.

Too many people claim to understand the importance of tactics without applying them.

Gunfights and armed criminal encounters are messy, and, at some point, your training has to reflect that messiness. Applying tactics that reflect WHAT you’re training for helps identify WHY you’re doing what you’re doing.

Response options have GOT to work for you. Applying tactics when you train will show if it does or doesn’t. Training with no adherence to tactics sets you up for failure, and we should never train to achieve failure.

Have you thought about how you train? Do you train with a purpose?