And then you have to pray the threat didn’t bring any friends, right? What bullshit. Massive ethical issues aside, that’s just crappy doctrine.
Firing 10 shots from my revolver would require emptying it and reloading. (It is a 5 shot revolver)
If you empty your weapon at close range, you actually hit the target, and the target shrugs it off and keeps coming for you, you should look to see if he is wearing a hockey mask or maybe an inverted William Shatner mask.
To keep firing until the subject is no longer a threat. In a high-stress situation, police generally fire a lot of shots, for a lot of reasons - people don’t instantly collapse at the first hit, it is very hard to hit even a human-sized target under extreme stress, etc. You can’t usually turn that kind of thing on and off on a split-second.
I am not sure limiting the amount of firepower available is a bad thing.
It has to do, not with how many times the suspect gets shot, but whether or not the shooting is justified. A justified shooting of 17 shots is not IMO significantly different from a justified shooting of six, and an unjustified shooting where the suspect is hit once or twice is, I suppose, better than 17 but that is almost besides the point. If he didn’t really present a threat, he shouldn’t have been shot at all. ISTM that there are limits to the idea that “more is better” - I wouldn’t necessarily say that police should routinely be carrying sub-machine guns - but having 17 shots available overall vs. six isn’t going to change the number of unjustified shootings very much.
Shut up, troll.
Regards,
Shodan
I have a friend who is a CO at a prison. He always tells me two shots center mass, then evaluate.
Obvious downside of going until you are out of bullets is that you are now out of bullets.
Good point. There you are with a gun emptied into an already demolished body, and suddenly you are confronted with your opponent’s partner(s). If you had stopped after killing him once you might have some ammo left, but you had to kill him three or four times over out of fear that he was Jason Voorhees or somesuch.
COs in prison do not usually carry guns (cite) so his advice may not match the experience of an LEO confronting a suspect very well.
Regards,
Shodan
Make sure you keep count of incoming and outgoing:
Harry Callahan never felt the need to empty his gun into any single target.
Just sayin’.
Neither do the vast majority of civilians, yet here you are.
Having 17 instead of 6 means that the lethality is greater, which means that the person is more likely to die, and whether or not the shooting is justified, police are not supposed to be executioners. Given the accuracy that cops have, 17 instead of 6 is also more bystanders to get hit.
Perhaps if the officers had taken an extra thirty seconds to evaluate the situation and the suspect before strutting in prepared for slaughter, they might have determined that he did not have a gun. This is the criticism that has been leveled in the Tamir Rice incident. Why they are not trained for measured approach to a situation is not clear to me, but it seems like that would result in fewer needless deaths.
Not when they are on the ranges, but they certainly do have them and train with them in case shit goes down.
OK, then let’s see the studies showing how many bystanders get hit, or how many more suspects die, when police carry six-shooters vs. when they carry 17-shot semiautomatic.
Regards,
Shodan
And in Chicago-92 deaths, 2623 bullets.
During the 2012 Empire State Building shooting, one officer fired 9 shots and another fired 7. Nine bystanders were hit, three directly and six by bullet fragments.
This reminds me of the most egregious defense in court I ever read: “It was an accidental shooting.”
The victim had more than 2 clips of bullets in his body :smack:
The guy should’ve been disbarred on the spot.
A man standing in his own back yard IS NOT A THREAT!
If a cop perceives him to be a threat, then it is my opinion that he is unfit to assess the situation.
If a reasonable police officer would find him a threat. then it is my opinion that police officers should not be in that situation.
I find it outrageous that the only response to a perceived threat is to kill it.
mc
I don’t think you can make that statement absolutely. Surely you can think of situations in which someone standing in his own back yard is a threat.
I must not be understanding you - putting yourself into harm’s way is part of a cop’s job.
Regards,
Shodan
If the only response to being in harm’s way is to shoot your way out of it, then it should not be part of anyone’s job.
and, besides, as was pointed out earlier in this thread, a cop is under no obligation to be in harm’s way.
mc