Yep. First gunshot and you stand there like a idiot.
Next and you panic and hide or run.
Only combat veterans, etc can get around that.
The mob would have panicked and ran.
Officer Fanone would disagree,
But, hey, he didn’t have some people’s perfect grasp of the actual situation.
Why not fire a few rounds, over their heads, (as opposed to mowing them down in numbers), to get their message across, as they threaten to breach the building?
I’m pretty sure they could have turned them back if they’d acted in concert, or, y’know had the proper manpower, back up, and a decently prepped actual plan.
Joe should use this utter ineptitude to assume every Trump dept head needs to be gone, TODAY!
Guns aren’t just noise. When the bullet passes over the crowd, it is still traveling and will land somewhere beyond. Those rounds are going to take out windows half a mile away, at best, or strike random pedestrians. Very unwise.
Warning shots, to the extent they’re ever warranted, should be from a high angle into the ground in front of the crowd, say from a roof-stationed shooter. (Even that is an extreme reaction, because bullets shatter on concrete and spray dangerous shrapnel.) In the circumstance where the mob is pressing directly against the walls and doors, a shot like that is not possible.
The nested-perimeter idea described earlier is preferable. Behind the barricade, nothing. Between the barricade and the door, you get tear gas and rubber bullets. You start banging on the door, you catch lead.
I suspect that mob contained a few of those. The rest were living in a movie where overcoming armed opponents was all part of the script.
They would just think it was flashbangs like the guy standing right next the woman who was shot.
Guns are not suited to crowd control. Horses and dogs are.
Horses establish the outer perimeter and dogs set the inner boundary. Dogs among the people on the Capitol steps would have immediately disrupted the crowd. Dogs are more fear inspiring and less dangerous than guns.