All nine Empire State injured shot by New York police
- Thread starter danmand
- Start date
In this instance the police shot a good many people by accident, and just one on purpose. I hope you actually intended to write something like, 'villains', or 'bad guys' where you wrote 'people', but even then I'd say that's way too thoughtless and undetailed an assertion for discussion purposes or public safety.
Would you care to amplify, or should we just pass on?
Where'd you hear this crap? A firearm only ever comes out of its holster when there is an immediate threat of serious bodily harm or death. Show authority and enforce command? That's what the uniform is for, that's what demeanor and communications is for; the gun is for when that fails horribly and lives are at stake.
As for less lethal options, again, like you said, they're specialized tools which require special training, can only be employed in very specific situations, yet don't match the threat stoping abilities of a 180 grain .40 S&W JHP.
to compare the entire use of force doctrine currently employed by the marines to the training which individual marines receive in marksmanship and weapons handling is more than a little silly.
OK. Cops never enter premises, or approach vehicles with drawn weapons, or hold suspects at gunpoint until they can be secured. All those fit in my understanding of "…show authority and enforce command" but you have assured us they never occur. In any case haste made me omit the qualifier 'often' which I meant to apply to 'the purpose'. But that purpose never happens, let alone often or seldom; weapons are only drawn to use, and that means to kill.
Thanks for mentioning one effective purpose of the uniform (another being to identify what we might call legitimate shooters) As we all know there's a country where cops managed very effective exercise of authority with no guns at all, but that's an entirely different matter for a different discussion. Still it does touch on my point: Cops are peace officers, if their guns are killing weapons and not peace tools, they need something as effective as the old-time bobby's uniform was as well as their guns. .
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When cops enter premises, or approach vehicles, or detain a suspect with a gun drawn, actually yes, they are responding to the lethal force with their own threat of lethal force. Can you imagine a LEO approaching your vehicle with pistol drawn, for a routine traffic stop? Can you imagine the paperwork? Die Hard and Lethal Weapon aren't documentaries.
Actually Old Jones those are almost entirely about "officer safety" and very little to do with "showing authority and enforcing command." Further, I have yet to see police approach a vehicle on a routine stop with a drawn weapon - indeed that would be grounds for discipline, now with hand on pistol grip is a different matter.
You are playing more semantics introducing 'routine traffic stops'—as opposed to threatening ones?. You know perfectly well officers do take their pistols out with no actual intention to fire, but to facilitate the exercise the coercive force that is a proper role of police, as was my original point. You have indeed provided examples.
Irrelevant specifics, like the routine traffic stop, imagined paperwork and my fave :"…180 grain .40 S&W JHP" are cute embroidery for your obviously passionate disagreement but they don't address the general point I was advancing.
I believe in Ontario an officer must file a report every time he draws his gun out of the holster.
To the general point of discussion, when I was a kid, police officers did not carry weapons, and I believe the public was better served that way. Intimidation should never be the trade of a police officer. "To serve and Protect" is their motto many places. There will generally be time to call in special units if a firefight is necessary.
"Use of Force Report" look it up. When a gun is drawn, it is used to "coerce" a subject out of a violent and potentially lethal course of action, anything less is unjustified. And you think me trigger happy, LMFAO.
Thanks for saying, as I said, on the point being discussed, guns are used to coerce without necessarily being fired. I note your language seems to now exclude drawing and firing in defence, but I'll put that down to inadvertance, as I put the paperwork sidetrack down to irrelevance.
You're talking to yourself quite contentedly about trigger-happy and all, why would I bother trying to get across what I actually think? I am interested in what you say when you're being thoughtful, not combative, but I wouldn't even for an instant want to speculate on what makes you happy.
Can a gun be employed without being fired? Yes, which is a far cry from using a pistol to "show authority and enforce command", which was your original point, right? You need a better reason than "he wasn't listening to me" to pull a gun on someone.
