I still have questions about why Bryan Malinowski is dead.

I know the simple answer--the reductive answer--is that he shot at ATF agents, who justifiably returned fire. Because if you are a law enforcement agent and someone is shooting at you and you have the means to shoot back, it's understood that you are allowed to defend yourself.

But most people would also argue that if you are awakened early by a bunch of noisy armed people who have congregated in your living room, you would be justified in firing your personal defense weapon at them. What else are personal defense weapons for?

So the real question is how did these armed people--we know they were ATF agents, but did Malinowski?--come to be in his front room at one minute past 6 a.m. March 19?

They were serving a search warrant, because they suspected Malinowski had overstepped some theoretical line between firearms hobbyist and gun runner. They wanted to catch him with his computers and his guns.

And both Bud Cummins, the former U.S. attorney who is representing Malinowski's family, and sources in federal law enforcement have told me that one of the reasons to bust into a suspect's house early in the morning is to catch them before they've had their coffee, when they might be groggy and liable to make statements against their own interest without their attorney present. There are practical reasons for conducting raids this way that have nothing to do with the safety of the suspect or officers involved.

This might be a sound policy. Police officers must be willing to assume a certain amount of risk.........

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