As I understand it, the president can target individuals. I’m not sure when that started, or restarted, as the case may be.
Can anyone else do that? Can a field general, admiral, or a high country sheriff, just start fighting, enter with guns blazing, and refuse to let someone surrender quietly?
There is no such thing as a “license to kill.”
Assassination by the US government is banned by Executive Order 12333 signed by Ronald Reagan in 1981. Only the President can reverse or override a previous executive order, so if an assassination is to be done, the President must order it himself. The exact mechanisms by which this occurs are classified, but it would involve a direct order either to the CIA or a suitably equipped military unit.
President Bush modified Executive Order 12333 in September 2001 IIRC. Not sure if it gives anyone a license to kill, but I believe it re-allowed targeted hits.
I think it is fairly obvious that no one has a carte blanche, 007-style “License to Kill,” but plenty of people can kill in the ordinary course of their duties with varying levels of scrutiny.
A soldier certainly does not have to give an enemy combatant opportunity to surrender, and in fact, does not have to accept a surrender if he has good reason to believe the person surrendering is not truly hors de combat. (This was covered in a recent thread on fraudulent surrenders.) Even civilian casualties are tolerated as long as reasonable steps are taken to avoid them. (And, of course, many breaches are unprosecutable and expected on both sides due to the “fog of war.”)
Police gun people down on a regular basis and face varying levels of scrutiny as a result, but I’m pretty sure they have fairly broad immunity as long as they were acting in good faith in the line of duty.
Even if there is a James Bond-type out there working for the CIA, I’m sure he has to account to somebody for every body he leaves. And more or less the same goes for every general, sheriff, and (to a certain extent) president out there.
Muammar Qaddafi may dispute the how affective the ban was in actual practice. 
Note that the OP asked about a license to kill in the United States. Not the same thing as killing outside the United States. The latter is done by the military every day. The former, OTOH, can never be done legally, not even by direct order of the President.
No cite off-hand, but I recall reading here on this board that cops in America are taught to shoot to kill, rather than disarm/injure/etc. So in effect, they’re not only permitted to kill people but in fact encouraged.
Only when faced with deadly force. :rolleyes: They are not trained to indiscriminatly kill people at will without retribution, which is what a license to kill would be.
Not by order of the President, maybe, but by order of a judge, sure.
The training I receive is to incapacitate a person by shooting at their center of mass. I will concede the shooting somebody in the middle of their chest does often tend to kill them, but we’re not intentionally shooting to kill.
yes; you on;y “shoot to wound” in movies. try and shoot the gun out of somebody’s hand or “wing them” intentionally and you’ll get yourself killed.
Small, sidetrack, but does one actually have “A” licence to kill or merely licence to kill?
mm
And, if it is “a” license to kill, is one required to get a learner’s permit first?
Well, yes, I do generally equate shooting someone in the chest with death. But I’ll leave this in GQ territory and back out now.
Shooting someone in the chest is the quickest way to make them STOP whatever they were doing. The intent is to stop them, not necessarily to kill them (although killing them certainly makes them stop.)
In explaining the concept of intent, my Ethics professor gave us the “do it again” test. If a cop shoots a suspect and the suspect falls to the ground immobile, but the cop sees that the person is still alive, he will not shoot them again. His intent, which was to stop the suspect and neutralize the threat, has been met. OTOH, if the suspect receives a wound that the cop knows fatal, but still manages to remain standing with a gun aimed at the cop (however briefly) the cop will shoot again. Until the suspect no longer poses an immediate, deadly threat, the cop’s intent has not been fulfilled, even if the suspect has been killed.
Some of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies practice covert assassination orders be damned if that is what you are referring to. The high profile attempts have included giving Fidel Castro a poison diving suit and a posion cigar. The U.S. does have intelligence agencies that operate out of the rules and oversight of the regular government.
I recall seeing in an episode of a news magazine (60 minutes? 
) about the soldiers who provided security while a nuclear missle was moved. The reported stated that they had a license to kill. But that’s all I remember about it.
Please provide proof that these attempts were made without executive approval.
Having worked in the law enforcement genre, I’ll point out as a supplement, the oft-repeated quotation: “Dead men don’t sue.” Police in the US are subject these days to civil prosecution in addition to criminal. Even if a shooting (resulting in death, dismemberment, or pain on the part of the suspect or anyone else) is “clean,” the officer can be sued personally.
On the one hand, I agree with this - it limits the borderline vigilante attitude that I’ve detected in some cops I’ve worked with.
On the other, I think it’s absolute BS that a LEO could lose house, home, and the means to support his family because some scuzbag resents being shot for endangering public safety.
But their heirs and assignees certainly can and do.