Fifty-four-year-old convicted murderer Michael Bernard Bell is set to be executed by lethal injection today in Florida.

FOX NEWS reported Bell was sentenced in 1995 for the murders of Tamecka Smith and Jimmy West. He ambushed them outside a bar, shooting them with an AK-47.

Smith was 18-years-old and West was 23 at the time of their deaths.

Bell killed Smith and West in a case of mistaken identity. He was trying to kill Theodore Wright and tracked Wright’s car to the bar, not knowing Wright had sold the vehicle to West.

USA Today noted Bell’s execution will bring the U.S. to a 10-year high and will be the 26th execution in the U.S. in 2025 alone. On a state level, Bell’s execution will be the eighth in Florida this year.

The sentencing judge in Bell’s murder trial pointed out that Bell had been in prison prior to the murders and he lamented that he was released: “These two murders can be laid at the doorstep of the Florida Parole Commission for the irresponsible early prison release of this violent habitual criminal who should have been in prison at the time the murders were committed.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at [email protected].