Taking this rationale to its logical conclusion, a police officer would be required to wait for violence to actually occur before responding. Imagine the scena

Taking this rationale to its logical conclusion, a police officer would be required to wait for violence to actually occur before responding. Imagine the scenario in which a civilian points a gun at a police officer's head. What course of action would you recommend? Wait for the civilian to fire? If the officer were to fire, would you say "I feared for my life" is reasonable? Second, you've got a straw man argument here. Police can't shoot (de jure) when there's a suspicion that maybe there's a possibility. In Texas (I imagine others are similar), deadly force is authorized [1]: (A) to protect the actor against the other's use or attempted use of unlawful deadly force; or (B) to prevent the other's imminent commission of aggravated kidnapping, murder, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated robbery. and, (1) the actor reasonably believes the conduct is immediately necessary to avoid imminent harm; (2) the desirability and urgency of avoiding the harm clearly outweigh, according to ordinary standards of reasonableness, the harm sought to be prevented by the law proscribing the conduct. There's a clear line here, and "reasonable" is decided by a jury of one's peers, not the responding officer. Reference: 1. http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/SOTWDocs/PE/htm/PE.9.htm http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/SOTWDocs/PE/htm/PE.9.h...