Replacing the 30mm gun with a smaller caliber weapon might be better choice to reduce roadway damage.
1.)
I’ve read or heard people who know commenting that it’s not at all easy to hit the tires, and it’s not an effective action.
2.) My mother was struck by a police car engaged in a high-speed chase. She was crossing the highway at a light that just turned green. She swears she had no warning – no lights or siren on the police car. She was driving a Volkswagen. No seat belt.
She was extremely lucky – she escaped with minor scarring. But it’s hard to believe the police chase justified it. One advantage the police have is the ability to call in multiple cars to cut off possible escape routes, which ought to be used as much as possible.
Not super-viable, there. A few threads on here have shown that under stress your average cop has substantial trouble hitting a grown man, much less the rubbery part of a car tire.
Shooting from a moving car isn’t terribly precise. Certainly not down to a “shot it in the tires” level. Plus if the bad guy sees the cops in a chase car aiming a weapon at him, his reaction may make a bad situation even worse. I’d take that situation from running from the police to trying to kill the police in a second if I was behind the wheel. In particular, you’ll stop aiming at me if I’m busy ramming you.
If you try to pull over and take the shot, by the time you get stopped the target is pretty far away and getting further all the time…
Still, nice idea if it worked.
It’s not impossible. I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-sixteen back home. They’re not much bigger than two meters.
And what about when moron boy’s kids get killed in the ensuing crash? Sucks to be them?
The remote shutoff idea is not only bad because it would be easy to disable; it’s bad because it would be easy for criminals to trigger it. Insta-carjack!
In that case, the person running away will really, REALLY not want to get caught. They’ll have nothing to lose.
What about them? When you take a dangerous weapon and use it in a reckless manner deliberately putting other people’s lives in danger, what do you expect? Should a cop put down a guy randomly shooting a rifle in the middle of a neighbourhood if he refuses to stop? Do you wait until he actually shoots someone before stopping him? Frankly, I’d rather be shot by almost any rifle than hit by a 2 ton car doing 90+mph.
What does that have to do with innocent people caught in the crossfire? They didn’t take dangerous weapons anywhere. Obviously, if there’s no safer way than killing to stop someone who is a danger to others, you do it. But insisting on excessive force because it would make an effective deterrent is asinine.
The next time some armed robber gets holed up with a couple hostages, shall we just lob some grenades in and clean up the mess?
You don’t consider a two ton vehicle driven in a reckless manner at speeds far greater than a) the roads will allow; b) the capabilities of the vehicle; c) the ability of the driver; and d) the ability of the public to avoid the situation to be similar to someone firing a rifle into random houses? Also, if the police decided to shoot said gunman, I assume they would wait until the school bus driving down the street behind him was out of the line of fire before doing so if at all avoidable. So, rationally, it would be best to wait until there is a stretch of open road before blasting the guy in the car. Sheesh.
Maybe it is just me, but the life of said miscreant is always considered to be of far less worth than any innocent bystander to the event and the duty of the police should be to protect them while still enforcing the law (which is there to also protect them).
So what does throwing a grenade into a hostage situation have to do with this?
If you’re chasing Osama Bin Laden down Santa Monica Blvd at rush hour, I say let the chase continue.
However, most chases involve cops chasing grocery store shoplifters, and are not worth the life of an innocent bystander under any circumstances.