Paradox SuXcess said:
Afternoon Escapist from the UK,
This can be a very touchy subject and hope you and I can discuss this without turning into some anti-gun/pro-gun flaming war. Please do not go into that topic. This is about the police force and use of their fire arms. Each country is different and here in the UK out on the beat officers do not carry guns only the trained police marksmen in certain situations. Some may have heard about the Mark Duggan case and once again I do not want to go off topic about that topic either but about what someone and others have said. Why are police officiers trained in shoot to kill rather than shoot to disable the suspect from the arm weapon. eg. rather than a double tap to the chest near the heart, why not the shoulder so they can drop the gun. Yes they would be injured but they would at least be able to give an further evidence to prevent more criminal activities in the future instead of being killed and not getting any other information to further a case. I know someone will correct me on this and please do cause I want to know more about it and learn.
All factors of reaction times, the nerves and the split second between life and death between the suspect and police. I am not bad mouthing the police or anyone like that just want to know what is the method in terms of taking down a suspect. Heck maybe you can express your thoughts on the matter in your country about how the police handle an alledged armed suspect who may or may not be reaching for a gun. Maybe I am not making any sense at all.
Please comment below and let's have a non-flammed talk about it and if you yourself are or know any trained marksmen, what do they think about that situation, if they have told you. Some officers are discreet and I respect that.
because incapacitating someone is harder than you think.
a 9mm (low caliber- most common used) round wont stop a man in his tracks and some can even manage to stab you after you shot 5 of these into his body.
the "i will shoot them in the leg to disable them" scenario you see in movies is almost impossible to archieve since arms and legs are smaller than your torso and they also move faster than your torso.
to be able to pull that off, you have to take aim for a long time and be relatively close to your target.
so close that they could run to you and stab you to death.
there was an incident where a ranger tried to disable an unarmed man. see the video in the spoiler box
<spoiler=graphic>
<youtube=N_92xgnobzQ>
as you probably saw, it didnt end well for the man.
anyways, even a shot to the arm can kill you.
more so if it hits your shoulder since the closer you get to your torso the thicker and more powerful your veins get.
you will bleed to death in seconds if it hits an artery .
http://www.medicalook.com/systems_images/Arteries_of_the_Shoulder_large.jpg
and mind that a bullet can shatter your bones by the sheer force of the impact, creating in the most unfortunate of scenarios a lot of shrapnel/fragments of bones and the bullet itself travelling through your body.
there are even reports of men being hit by a medium to large caliber round to the stomache or chest that were so forcefull that they died of breaking their necks.