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Why shooting to wound doesn't make sense scientifically, legally or tactically
- mirimir 11y agoMaybe what's needed are better non-lethal weapons for police.
- bluedino 11y agoIdeally you would want some kind of sci-fi weapon that shoots out some sort of impenetrable web/blanket that wraps around the criminal, holding them until you can safely handle them at a later point.
- mirimir 11y agoI like the sticky-slime approach. I first read that in Snow Crash. Targets get glued to themselves and anything they touch. There's an enzyme that quickly degrades the adhesive.
- noblethrasher 11y agoPossibly. But, another name for “non-lethal weapon” is “cheap and effective compliance tool”. With those, we risk making many forms of protest and civil disobedience difficult or impossible.
- mirimir 11y agoThat's not an issue, as long as police act lawfully, and laws allow protest and civil disobedience.
- PythonicAlpha 11y ago> as long as police act lawfully I knew, there is a glitch!
- mkirlin 11y agoOr better training and actual accountability. It's not like cops use tasers judiciously and intelligently.
- mirimir 11y agoTasers are not all that non-lethal :( Police ought to be part of the community, rather than some external paramilitary force. Their behavior would then be modulated through social mechanisms.
- mkirlin 11y agoAlso an excellent point. The selling of non-lethal weapons has been a several-decades long exercise in manufacturers lying about the safety of those non-lethal weapons. Rubber bullets, tasers, it's all bullshit.
- thedoctor79 11y agoHow about using electro-magnetic waves to alter the brain function temporarily and provoke it to lose consciousness? Sounds like a hard technical challenge, but we can already deliver effective tranquilisants remotely and use electrical discharge to disable the central nervous system. Just find a more efficient way of doing that.
- raceyT 11y agoIt's mind boggling that a centuries old weapon is a supposition for any problem, let alone such a terribly serious one. It's likely that dog catchers are more advanced in their approach.
- bhickey 11y agoShooting to wound is absurd. However, keep in mind that Bill Lewinski is a pseudoscientist who makes his living justifying killings by police. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/training-officers-to-shoot-first-and-he-will-answer-questions-later.html?referrer= http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/training-officers-to...
- molecule 11y agoadditional source consideration, pfoa.org.co.uk: Police Firearms Officers Association
- TillE 11y agoNo, it really isn't absurd. The German police do it very frequently. http://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/polizeibericht/article205518947/Kreuzberg-Polizist-stoppt-Angreifer-mit-Schuss-ins-Bein.html http://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/polizeibericht/article205518...
- tormeh 11y ago... for some values of "very". German police don't shoot much at all. That said I'm a former Norwegian King's Guard, and we were told to aim for the legs first if shooting was absolutely necessary. Admittedly, since we were shooting with 7.62mm NATO rounds at the time, a shot in the leg would basically be a very crude amputation. They use 5.56mm NATO now, but I bet getting hit in the leg is still not much fun. We were stationed at posts including the palace and the fortress, which are both in the centre of Oslo, so if you're really looking for trouble the threat is not academic. I've never heard of a guard firing at anyone since ww2 though (except themselves in suicide).
- jsprogrammer 11y agoSounds like a strawman. Who advocates shooting people just to wound them? Why not shoot to disable a threat?
- msandford 11y agoPeople who don't like the idea of police shooting someone not just a few times but a few dozen or hundreds of times. When the police seem to abuse their power by shooting many, many more times than is necessary it's natural for people to ask what can be done to restore a bit of balance between the police and the public. http://ktla.com/2015/05/23/cleveland-officer-michael-brelo-found-not-guilty-in-killing-of-unarmed-man-woman/ http://ktla.com/2015/05/23/cleveland-officer-michael-brelo-f...
- jsprogrammer 11y agoSorry, I'm discussing the nomenclature: "shoot to wound". It sounds like something someone would do as torture. Why shoot to wound someone? To what end? Just to cause them pain? However, there would seem to be something worth considering in a "shoot to disable" policy, as opposed to a "shoot to kill" policy.
- msandford 11y agoYeah that makes a lot more sense! Thanks for clarifying.
- krapp 11y agoNo, call it what it is. I think "shoot to wound" is the correct way to describe it. "shoot to disable" sounds too abstract, as if guns were something other than machines designed to puncture human flesh with bits of metal, with the express purpose of causing pain, injury and possibly death. Wounding and killing are pretty much the only settings that guns have.
- andreasvc 11y agoWell this is obviously a biased piece; that may explain the unflattering phrasing.
- manishsharan 11y agoI wonder how the London police manage to keep order without carrying guns ?
- rayiner 11y agoBecause western European cities are vastly less violent: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/lets-hold-off-celebrating_b_4405153.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/lets-hold-off-cel.... Baltimore, where I live, has 25x the per-capita murder rate of London. Chicago has 13x the murder rate. New York, the safest large city in the country, has 3x the murder rate.
- rubenariz 11y agoB-more the city that bleeds.(I live there too) That said, the murders usually occur in the same bad areas over and over. If you live in a good area, you notice it only on the evening local news.
- revelation 11y agoI don't get the connection, it's not cops being killed at a higher rate.
- mxfh 11y agoBecause the general public isn't expected to be armed with firearms either.
- DanBC 11y agoThere are several armed criminal gangs in London. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_in_the_United_Kingdom
- mc32 11y agoBecause outside of rural areas guns and permits are extremely hard to come by, so the cops don't need to presume a threatening person has a high likelihood of having a gun.
- pmichaud 11y agoThis all makes a very compelling case for "using firearms in an optimal way is outside the limits of human ability, so police should not use firearms." That's assuming your terminal value is not "police life matters more than any other consideration."
- oberstein 11y agoIndeed, perhaps we should aim to have weaponized drones following cops around that can precisely target weak points when the cop orders. This article also makes a compelling case that when the necromorphs come, cops will be useless to protect humanity.
- andybak 11y agoBrit here. Is the 'stop or I'll shoot' thing a myth or does it actually happen in the US? i.e. do police in the US shoot suspects when there is no threat other than the risk they will get away?
- protomyth 11y agoWhat exactly do you means by "there is no threat"?
- leesalminen 11y agoI think he means that a suspect does not have a weapon in hand but the officer still has a gun pointed at the suspect.
- protomyth 11y agoI get the feeling from talking to folks who were tribal police or reserves, that charging a police office will get you shot. Trying to take a weapon from a police officer will get you shot. The answer is no sane officer is going to shoot a non-dangerous person. Although the nature of non-dangerous is the problem. Several cases (New Mexico) that should have been national outrages have gone unreported, but a case (Ferguson) that the final report said was justified were demonized (although the report does make some very valid points about the police department in general and should have been part of an investigation years before). How we keep ignoring the problems with flash bangs, I will never know.
- conanbatt 11y agoIF someone is running by foot, he is not a threat to anyone, unless he is swinging a weapon of somekind. Shooting someone while fleeing is terrible in so many levels.
- protomyth 11y agoIf he is running by foot at the officer, he is a threat. If he is running at another person, he is a threat. If he is running away, he is NOT a threat. Simply, "unarmed and running" is not enough information.
- protomyth 11y agoThe New York Post has just reported that Brooklyn Assembly Members Annette Robinson [D.-Bedford Stuyvesant] and Darryl Towns [D.-East New York] have introduced a "minimum force" bill that would require officers to "shoot a suspect in the arm or the leg" and to use firearms "with the intent to stop, rather than kill." This is what happens when people think TV and movies are an accurate representation of reality. Beyond the problem of police not getting enough firearms training in the first place, it just isn't possible to shoot anything other than center mass with any hope in hell of hitting with a handgun for the average officer. This is almost as stupid as thinking a taser is non-lethal. Getting hit by a taser can kill people. New research into low lethality weapons for police would be great, but I'm not holding out much hope given the funding. Perhaps we can stop with the fantasy and start concentrating on things like over use of SWAT, actual police oversight, and liability of the chain of command. On the other side, stop demonizing police before the facts are in.
- x0054 11y agoHow about loading the first round with blanks. Some times just the sound of the shot is enough to startle and stop a suspect. Shooting in the air would be an option too, but it could be a little problematic, as what goes up, must come down. The blank option would also give an officer a split second to maybe rethink his actions. And if the officer really needs to use lethal force, it's easy to quickly squeeze off 2 rounds, with the second one being the real deal.
- mc32 11y agoThat sounds a bit too close to Russian roulette. What happens in the case where you really need to incapacitate rather than warn? But, no you have a blank in there. This has a likelihood of being a nice idea which in practice makes things worse. On the other hand, in Germany, dogs are used more widely to stop people who don't need the orders to halt.
- remarkEon 11y agoNo. From experience, the only other rounds that would go into my magazine were tracer rounds. Additionally, the mechanics of how these weapons work make that not possible. Edit: Beyond the above, from a tactical perspective...just think through the game theory on that and you'll see why that would be unwise.
- jeffreportmill 11y agoI think this article misses the point of recent controversies, which have dealt with lethal force on unarmed suspects. If a suspect is armed, you probably don't want to shoot their legs and hope they drop their weapon. But if a seemingly unarmed suspect continues to run, or approach, it seems more than reasonable to not shoot to kill. Unless you are Judge Dredd.
- birdman3131 11y agoThe part of the article that seems to apply most to that to me is: " "Less-lethal options should be attempted only with tools designed for that purpose," Avery says. "If you deliberately use deadly force to bring people into custody without incapacitating them, you're using the wrong tool for that job."
- pytrin 11y agoThe real problem is that most officers have such minimal training and conditioning in hand-to-hand combat combat (specifically, grappling), and as a result they panic and shoot-to-kill much more often than they should, or use excessive force to control a suspect also resulting in unnecessary deaths. Instead of passing stupid legislation (anyone who's used firearms extensively knows aiming for limbs is not realistic, you have to aim for center-mass), they should work on improving ongoing officer training and conditioning so that officers would feel much more comfortable controlling a suspect without killing them.
- branchan 11y agoWhy would a police officer ever risk his own life by engaging in hand-to-hand combat? If a situation arises that calls for hand-to-hand combat, then the police officer should probably either use a taser or gun right?
- pytrin 11y agoI've been training in a grappling sport (BJJ) for over 9 years. The advantage a trained person has over an untrained one is massive. Even someone who has been training a few months could easily handle an untrained person without anyone getting hurt. You can see hundreds of videos out there of police shooting people without apparent just cause - just because they "felt threatened". If they had the confidence they could deal with a physical confrontation if needed, I'm certain the amount of unnecessary shootings would decrease significantly.
- branchan 11y agoWould you risk your life by confronting an aggressive person in hand-to-hand combat if you had no knowledge whether he had a knife or gun on him?
- gharial 11y agoThe only instance in which an officer should ever be firing a weapon in the field is to stop a target that is posing an immediate and lethal threat. In that situation, shooting to kill would be perfectly justified. Why can we not address and punish cops who think firing rounds into someone's back as they flee is acceptable instead of trying to mandate that they shoot an extremity (which they will undoubtably 'miss' in the 'heat of the moment' in favor of center mass)?
- x0054 11y agoMore important, when they do miss, the bullet will keep going, possibly actually killing a bystander.
- andreasvc 11y agoI honestly don't think anyone would disagree with those rules of engagement. The cops simply make errors of judgment. Bringing them to justice would be ideal, but it seems to be a case of some are more equal than others (esp. if you're in a powerful union).
- baseballmerpeak 11y ago1. Dead men tell no tales. 2. Aiming at smaller and easier to miss areas is a great way to introduce bullets to whatever is behind the intended target. 3. Getting shot is not a guarantee of a cessation of hostilities.
- drallison 11y agoPerhaps the solution to police killings is to disarm the police. The current default--police have weapons and can use them as they see fit--seems not to be working.
- krapp 11y agoUS police have 2nd Amendment rights like anyone else, so that seems unlikely.
- conanbatt 11y agoDoes it really work that way? Police men should not be able to use any kind of weapon on the job other than the ones they've been assigned.
- krapp 11y agoI'm not a cop or a lawyer, but I can imagine a situation in which people could be expected to sometimes shoot at the cops but the cops weren't allowed to shoot back would meet with a supreme court challenge sooner or later.
- rhino369 11y agoThat would never work with the amount of gun ownership in America. People wield guns against cops hundreds if not thousands of times a year. Imagine if criminals knew the cops wouldn't have a gun. This is a problem with the gun violence issue as a whole. The use of guns is absurdly high across the board.
- branchan 11y agoDo you think this is actually a viable solution given how easy it is for somebody to obtain a firearm in the US?
- drallison 11y agoSome of the HN comments have observed that it's not only the police that need to be disarmed, it is the populace as a whole. Gun violence seems to be so deeply ingrained into the American psyche that the Congress has found it necessary to pass a law preventing the Center for Disease Control from studying the epidemic of violence. See, for example, http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2013/02/gun-violence.aspx http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2013/02/gun-violence.as... and elsewhere. People get so worked up about this issue when they fear their guns will be taken away that they will not support anything which will help mitigate the violence. So much for rational thought.
- lectrick 11y agoSomeone needs to invent a "shoot to incapacitate" weapon (that is not a Taser). That said... we have the technology, today, to make a gun that automatically targets, in a split second and with high accuracy, the arms and legs (and any other part) of a person. So why don't we just do that?
- branchan 11y ago1. Did you just not describe a taser? 2. Where is this weapon?
- lectrick 11y ago1) I specifically said not a Taser. A Taser has a number of negatives- short range, need for both contacts to penetrate adequately, small chance of death of subject 2) I do not know of one that exists, but I am sure that one is possible with today's technology. Perhaps I should gather a team and build it
- branchan 11y agoMy point exactly is there is no other practical or efficient weapon available or else one would be made already.
- venomsnake 11y agoOf course if it comes to shooting you have to shoot to kill. I think the problem is with too trigger happy cops that are too quick to pull their guns out and are not utilizing their tools to deescalate the situation. And yes sometimes deescalating means letting someone just get away temporarily if he only stole a pack of smokes.
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- PythonicAlpha 11y agoMaybe, I am from a different planet, but sometimes I heard, that police should protect people, but currently some policemen are more caring about protecting themselves -- and they are trained exactly that way. This at least, as an European, goes threw my mind, when I read such descriptions and some news from unarmed people shot into the back.
- branchan 11y agoWhy does it not make sense that the police should be trained on how to protect themselves? Also EU gun control laws are stricter than in the US so that is why maybe your police force will be nice and not expect everyone to own a gun.
- PythonicAlpha 11y agoThey should protect themselves, but not protect themselves and forget to protect others. So, they become a part of the problem. Even, when you expect everybody to have guns, it does not justify shooting others into the back.
- branchan 11y agoI never mentioned anything about shooting others in the back.
- PythonicAlpha 11y agoBut I did and that is what is happening. And just keeping quiet about it, does not make it better.
- mxfh 11y agoAs long as you allow the general public to carry firearms the police will have a hard time establish a power superiority in any stand of without the excessive use of firepower. As this article talks about firing multiple rounds per encounter is the norm it nigh be worth pointing out that the whole German police fired less than 100 shots at person per year for the last decade. https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffengebrauch_der_Polizei_in_Deutschland https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffengebrauch_der_Polizei_i...
- bluedino 11y agoRemember one of the reasons police officers are 'militarized' these days are events like the North Hollywood shootout, where cops didn't have body armor and used small-caliber revolvers. They were simply out-gunned by two bank robbers with assault rifles and 11 police officers and 7 civilians ended up getting shot.
- andreasvc 11y agoIt seems obvious that this plays a role, but I expect a large proportion of guns to be illegally owned, so repealing the 2nd amendment won't magically solve the problem (and it seems unproductive to try either way). I think the fundamental problem is fear, whether justified or not, it's what causes cops to react with disproportional violence.
- branchan 11y agoIt is unfair to quote that statistic. Germany has one of the strictest gun control laws in the world and one needs to give a reason for owning a gun and self-defense is not an accepted reason: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_legislation_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_legislation_in_Germany Given that it is harder for an individual to obtain a gun, it naturally makes it less often that the German police will need to discharge their weapon.