[MrB]

She should have shot the dude dead. No question.
Firing into the air could have gotten her boyfriend killed, and the bullets have to come down somewhere, and at nearly the same speed as they went up.

[PapaBear3625]

She should have shot the dude dead. No question.

One problem: Maryland is a "May Issue" state, where it's hard to get a permit, so it's likely she was carrying illegally. Killing a guy while in commission of a crime (illegal carry) might have turned out very badly for her in court. It being Baltimore, and the circumstances of the transaction, lead me to think that neither side were fine upstanding citizens with clean records.

[jpsb]

For further insight, we turn to Hatcher's Notebook (1962) by Major General Julian S. Hatcher, a U.S. Army ordnance expert. Hatcher described military tests with, among other things, a .30 caliber bullet weighing .021 pounds. Using a special rig, the testers shot the bullet straight into the air. It came down bottom (not point) first at what was later computed to be about 300 feet per second. "With the [.021 pound] bullet, this corresponds to an energy of 30 foot pounds," Hatcher wrote. "Previously, the army had decided that on the average an energy of 60 foot pounds is required to produce a disabling wound. Thus, service bullets returning from extreme heights cannot be considered lethal by this standard."

[Smokin' Joe]

She should have shot the dude dead. No question.

Nah. Once he'd dropped the gun and left, she should have picked up the gun and they should have gone home. Can't just leave a gun laying around, y'know, that'd be unsafe....