5 ms·

Shoot first! Ask questions later! mirite?!

67726e 9y ago
When someone was firing a "machine gun" in the vicinity, that might not be the worst idea. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
praneshp 9y ago
Absolutely yes, in this case. I'd prefer the officers went home to their families. If you want to go around pointing your phone at everything, you need to stop and think about the consequences.
- bonzini 9y ago
  Assuming it's necessary to shoot at all, aiming to kill is even more rarely the right thing to do.
  - Kalium 9y ago
    In real life, there is only "do not shoot the firearm" and "shoot the firearm with the intent to kill". There is no practical aiming to disable or similar with a lethal firearm. There's no difference between the two, and no distinction to be drawn.
    - grzm 9y ago
      Thank you for mentioning this. One minor adjustment I'd make to the above statement is "shoot the firearm with the intent to stop". This is a small, but important distinction. It doesn't change anything with respect to how the firearm is used (e.g., point of aim). At least from the perspective of police use of deadly force, the goal isn't to kill, it's to stop the person from continuing to be a threat. The outcome may be that the person does die, but if the person is stopped and doesn't die, that's an acceptable outcome once the decision has been made to use deadly force.
      - bonzini 9y ago
        It's not minor at all, and it's exactly what I was hinting at. If the person is stopped, doesn't die, and can be subject to trial in a court of law, that is a _better_ outcome.
        grzm 9y ago
        Would you clarify what you understand as alternatives to "aiming to kill" and how they would be effectively different from "aiming to kill"? Edit: clarified question.
        bonzini 9y ago
        They aren't different at all from "aiming to stop", but the difference from "aiming to kill" is enormous. For example, aiming at the leg can be just as effective as aiming at the heart.
        grzm 9y ago
        Sorry, I can see how my question was unclear. I mean how "aiming to kill" is effectively different from "aiming to stop". I've edited it for clarity. There are a couple of issues with the idea of, say, aiming at the leg. * A leg wound may not stop the person. * A leg wound can be lethal: you can bleed out very quickly if the femoral artery is hit. * The trajectory of a bullet (and its fragments) once it impacts the body can be very unpredictable: a bullet entering the leg may strike bone and enter the chest cavity. And all of these assume precise aim under stress. You mention aiming for the heart: police won't generally be aiming for something as small as the heart. Police (and all people using firearms) should receive the best training they can (and likely more and better firearms training than is often available today), but precise aim under stress is no easy task. They may be aiming for the torso (which of course includes the heart), because shots to the torso are generally more effective at stopping a person and it's a relatively large target: shots are more likely to hit and therefore less likely to miss (and hit something else: all bullets land somewhere). Firearms are deadly force. Police have less-lethal alternatives available as well, and should be trained to use them effectively when it's appropriate to do so. If a police officer resorts to deadly force, the goal should be to stop the person as effectively and quickly as possible.
    - bonzini 9y ago
      Not at all. In civilized countries, police are specifically trained to stop, not to kill. Sometimes one may imply the other, but not necessarily.
      - Kalium 9y ago
        I'm 100% certain that you're absolutely right. Yet, I'm not aware of any way to use a lethal firearm in a capacity to stop in a way that is in some important and practical manner distinct from stopping a person lethally. I'm sure this is just a failure on my part to comprehend your point. Can you clarify, to help me with my personal failures? Perhaps you could detail what you mean about how police are trained in civilized countries? Perhaps what you meant to communicate is that weapons other than inherently lethal firearms should be deployed?
  - praneshp 9y ago
    I'm by no means an expert gun-handler, but the only constant instruction every time I go to a range is "Don't point the gun at anything you are not ok with completely destroying". I understand police should be better trained, and ideally they must shoot to stop vs shoot to kill.
    - grzm 9y ago
      > ideally they must shoot to stop vs shoot to kill Would you clarify what you understand as the practical, effective difference between the two?
    - user5994461 9y ago
      Safety on, unless you're actively practising. Keep guns pointed toward the ground or the air when handling, don't point at things and never point at people. Only have your hands on the trigger if you are planning to shoot. (Corollary: if someone has hands on trigger, consider that he's gonna shoot.) P.S. That's what I've seen at European ranges, let's assume they are taking security more seriously than American ones :D
    - nylonstrung 9y ago
      They already have non-lethal options available if they intend to stop someone. I feel like this would increase the lethality of situations where non-lethal approaches are warranted rather than decreasing the lethality of other ones. Firearms should not be treated as implements of lethality and nothing but that. Imagine how many police shooting cases we'd see where cop claims he was shooting to wound but 'missed'
- ajross 9y ago
  Genuinely confused about this morality. Why is it more correct that the officers "went home to their families" than that this innocent guy died in front of his? I mean, I can understand arguing that sometimes protective violence is necessary and accepting that tragedies happen. But you're literally taking a side here and saying that police lives are more important than ours. Why?
  - golergka 9y ago
    You're making this argument with full information. Police acting at the scene didn't have this luxury. It is very easy to tell what others should have done in a situation that they perceive as life and death.
    - SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
      The point is they're scaredy cats who jump at shadows and create deadly situations out of things that aren't. If they want me to care that they perceive things as life-or-death, they need to adjust their perception. Being scared of your shadow holding a gun and pumping a house full of rounds isn't something I'm going to think is reasonable, even if you were really scared. Soldiers in literal warzones facing trained adversaries trying to murder them aren't as jumpy as cops in a suburban neighborhood dealing with normal people. Cops need better trigger discipline.
      - praneshp 9y ago
        Well the person they were arresting was not quite normal. At least some part of your comparison is incorrect.
  - jtuente 9y ago
    It's not a rationalization that police lives are more important, but rather about the stupidity of holding up a phone in such a way towards the police engaged in a dangerous situation that it appears as though you are acting aggressively towards them. The officers only have a limited time to assess the threat of any given person before more lives are lost due to an unknown danger. It's a high stress situation and wrong decisions are easily made. The officers weren't right in their immediate assessment of the danger, but that doesn't mean their actions were unwarranted.
- stupidhn 9y ago
  >If you want to go around pointing your phone at everything, you need to stop and think about the consequences. You should be embarassed of this comment. >I'd prefer the officers went home to their families. I'd prefer that unarmed, innocent civilians went home to their families.
- i80and 9y ago
  I'm fairly sure you're being ironic, but I don't think it comes through in text very well.
  - praneshp 9y ago
    Nope! I'm still learning to say potentially offensive things in a non-offensive way, so maybe that didn't come across well. (Unless you are sarcastically saying that I must be trying irony.)
- Broken_Hippo 9y ago
  I'd prefer everyone comes out of such encounters alive. At the point these folks thought someone might have a weapon, the prudent thing to do is hold back and carefully plan your next moves. One of the first things would be to verify your suspicions - that there was, in fact, a gun. They knew going in that folks hold things that can be mistaken for guns. Like phones and a myriad of other things - even during normal activities like running. Protocol should reflect that knowledge and err on the safety of everyone. Things change if there are actual shots fired from that direction, but caution before such time.
- s73ver 9y ago
  Absolutely not. We hold cops to a higher standard. And I would have liked this guy to have gone home to his family.

When someone was firing a "machine gun" in the vicinity, that might not be the worst idea. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

praneshp 9y ago

Absolutely yes, in this case. I'd prefer the officers went home to their families. If you want to go around pointing your phone at everything, you need to stop and think about the consequences.

bonzini 9y ago
Assuming it's necessary to shoot at all, aiming to kill is even more rarely the right thing to do.
- Kalium 9y ago
  In real life, there is only "do not shoot the firearm" and "shoot the firearm with the intent to kill". There is no practical aiming to disable or similar with a lethal firearm. There's no difference between the two, and no distinction to be drawn.
  - grzm 9y ago
    Thank you for mentioning this. One minor adjustment I'd make to the above statement is "shoot the firearm with the intent to stop". This is a small, but important distinction. It doesn't change anything with respect to how the firearm is used (e.g., point of aim). At least from the perspective of police use of deadly force, the goal isn't to kill, it's to stop the person from continuing to be a threat. The outcome may be that the person does die, but if the person is stopped and doesn't die, that's an acceptable outcome once the decision has been made to use deadly force.
    - bonzini 9y ago
      It's not minor at all, and it's exactly what I was hinting at. If the person is stopped, doesn't die, and can be subject to trial in a court of law, that is a _better_ outcome.
      - grzm 9y ago
        Would you clarify what you understand as alternatives to "aiming to kill" and how they would be effectively different from "aiming to kill"? Edit: clarified question.
        bonzini 9y ago
        They aren't different at all from "aiming to stop", but the difference from "aiming to kill" is enormous. For example, aiming at the leg can be just as effective as aiming at the heart.
        grzm 9y ago
        Sorry, I can see how my question was unclear. I mean how "aiming to kill" is effectively different from "aiming to stop". I've edited it for clarity. There are a couple of issues with the idea of, say, aiming at the leg. * A leg wound may not stop the person. * A leg wound can be lethal: you can bleed out very quickly if the femoral artery is hit. * The trajectory of a bullet (and its fragments) once it impacts the body can be very unpredictable: a bullet entering the leg may strike bone and enter the chest cavity. And all of these assume precise aim under stress. You mention aiming for the heart: police won't generally be aiming for something as small as the heart. Police (and all people using firearms) should receive the best training they can (and likely more and better firearms training than is often available today), but precise aim under stress is no easy task. They may be aiming for the torso (which of course includes the heart), because shots to the torso are generally more effective at stopping a person and it's a relatively large target: shots are more likely to hit and therefore less likely to miss (and hit something else: all bullets land somewhere). Firearms are deadly force. Police have less-lethal alternatives available as well, and should be trained to use them effectively when it's appropriate to do so. If a police officer resorts to deadly force, the goal should be to stop the person as effectively and quickly as possible.
  - bonzini 9y ago
    Not at all. In civilized countries, police are specifically trained to stop, not to kill. Sometimes one may imply the other, but not necessarily.
    - Kalium 9y ago
      I'm 100% certain that you're absolutely right. Yet, I'm not aware of any way to use a lethal firearm in a capacity to stop in a way that is in some important and practical manner distinct from stopping a person lethally. I'm sure this is just a failure on my part to comprehend your point. Can you clarify, to help me with my personal failures? Perhaps you could detail what you mean about how police are trained in civilized countries? Perhaps what you meant to communicate is that weapons other than inherently lethal firearms should be deployed?
- praneshp 9y ago
  I'm by no means an expert gun-handler, but the only constant instruction every time I go to a range is "Don't point the gun at anything you are not ok with completely destroying". I understand police should be better trained, and ideally they must shoot to stop vs shoot to kill.
  - grzm 9y ago
    > ideally they must shoot to stop vs shoot to kill Would you clarify what you understand as the practical, effective difference between the two?
  - user5994461 9y ago
    Safety on, unless you're actively practising. Keep guns pointed toward the ground or the air when handling, don't point at things and never point at people. Only have your hands on the trigger if you are planning to shoot. (Corollary: if someone has hands on trigger, consider that he's gonna shoot.) P.S. That's what I've seen at European ranges, let's assume they are taking security more seriously than American ones :D
  - nylonstrung 9y ago
    They already have non-lethal options available if they intend to stop someone. I feel like this would increase the lethality of situations where non-lethal approaches are warranted rather than decreasing the lethality of other ones. Firearms should not be treated as implements of lethality and nothing but that. Imagine how many police shooting cases we'd see where cop claims he was shooting to wound but 'missed'
ajross 9y ago
Genuinely confused about this morality. Why is it more correct that the officers "went home to their families" than that this innocent guy died in front of his? I mean, I can understand arguing that sometimes protective violence is necessary and accepting that tragedies happen. But you're literally taking a side here and saying that police lives are more important than ours. Why?
- golergka 9y ago
  You're making this argument with full information. Police acting at the scene didn't have this luxury. It is very easy to tell what others should have done in a situation that they perceive as life and death.
  - SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
    The point is they're scaredy cats who jump at shadows and create deadly situations out of things that aren't. If they want me to care that they perceive things as life-or-death, they need to adjust their perception. Being scared of your shadow holding a gun and pumping a house full of rounds isn't something I'm going to think is reasonable, even if you were really scared. Soldiers in literal warzones facing trained adversaries trying to murder them aren't as jumpy as cops in a suburban neighborhood dealing with normal people. Cops need better trigger discipline.
    - praneshp 9y ago
      Well the person they were arresting was not quite normal. At least some part of your comparison is incorrect.
- jtuente 9y ago
  It's not a rationalization that police lives are more important, but rather about the stupidity of holding up a phone in such a way towards the police engaged in a dangerous situation that it appears as though you are acting aggressively towards them. The officers only have a limited time to assess the threat of any given person before more lives are lost due to an unknown danger. It's a high stress situation and wrong decisions are easily made. The officers weren't right in their immediate assessment of the danger, but that doesn't mean their actions were unwarranted.
stupidhn 9y ago
>If you want to go around pointing your phone at everything, you need to stop and think about the consequences. You should be embarassed of this comment. >I'd prefer the officers went home to their families. I'd prefer that unarmed, innocent civilians went home to their families.
i80and 9y ago
I'm fairly sure you're being ironic, but I don't think it comes through in text very well.
- praneshp 9y ago
  Nope! I'm still learning to say potentially offensive things in a non-offensive way, so maybe that didn't come across well. (Unless you are sarcastically saying that I must be trying irony.)
Broken_Hippo 9y ago
I'd prefer everyone comes out of such encounters alive. At the point these folks thought someone might have a weapon, the prudent thing to do is hold back and carefully plan your next moves. One of the first things would be to verify your suspicions - that there was, in fact, a gun. They knew going in that folks hold things that can be mistaken for guns. Like phones and a myriad of other things - even during normal activities like running. Protocol should reflect that knowledge and err on the safety of everyone. Things change if there are actual shots fired from that direction, but caution before such time.
s73ver 9y ago
Absolutely not. We hold cops to a higher standard. And I would have liked this guy to have gone home to his family.