Shoot to disable instead of shoot to kill. Let's have an open talk about this.

[asinann]

Ironically to spite most of these "killing stops someone instantly!" posts, nothing short of shooting someone in the BRAIN will kill them instantly.

The heart? Brain is still active, even though oxygen is no longer being pumped - think holding your breath.

People have this concept from action movies... that if you're shot, you fall over like a cartoon character. That would only happen if your nervous system was crippled, you wanted to play dead... you were in too much pain to stand (but would probably be moaning or screaming uncontrollably from pain/shock/fear of death, indicating life) or were shot in the head.

The only other possibility is that you pass out from shock and die later, but either way. Unless its a headshot you don't die instantly, therefore you should shoot to disable so that:

1) You aren't (through abuse/misuse of legal systems) brought up on charges of murder/manslaughter (even in self defense, you can end up penalized heavily)

2) Don't have to live with the terror of killing someone for the rest of your life

3) You don't have the right to end someones life, and never will. So you should try not to. People can change. LOVE AND PEACE!

However, if your life is in danger you must do what you must. If your life isn't in danger but you need to shoot; that's what im saying.

Nice to see the clueless chiming in. I use a .45 because they are LESS likely to kill (the force of the round and the tissue damage will send a normal person into shock, slowing blood flow) and if they are wearing body armor it has enough kinetic energy to knock them down. If I miss and hit a limb, the limb is useless but I aim for the torso during range time because it's easier to hit than an extremity.
If my life is in danger an I'm down to lethal force, I'm going for the kill: you don't draw the weapon on a person if you don't intend to kill with it, to do less is the quickest way to die yourself.

 

[Kennetic]

People have this concept from action movies... that if you're shot, you fall over like a cartoon character. That would only happen if your nervous system was crippled, you wanted to play dead... you were in too much pain to stand (but would probably be moaning or screaming uncontrollably from pain/shock/fear of death, indicating life) or were shot in the head.

I agree with what you're saying but a heart shot can absolutely drop a person instantly. I've been hunting for years and a heart shot on a deer will almost always drop that ***** on the spot.

A heart shot "can" drop a person, but there's no guarantee, a person can have full voluntary movement for up to 10 second with the heart destroyed.

It's true that going own straight away if mostly a movie thing...however, the person being shot has likely seen those films as well, and might well panic and go down, at least in part because they assume going down automatically happens. Or, in the excitement, they might not register being hit right away.

Absolutely they might not go down right away, hence shoot to stop the threat. I just wanted a friendly jab lol.

 

[The Event]

Nice to see the clueless chiming in. I use a .45 because they are LESS likely to kill (the force of the round and the tissue damage will send a normal person into shock, slowing blood flow) and if they are wearing body armor it has enough kinetic energy to knock them down.

A .45 won't knock someone down, no pistol round (and pretty much no ordinary rifle round) will.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Nice to see the clueless chiming in. I use a .45 because they are LESS likely to kill (the force of the round and the tissue damage will send a normal person into shock, slowing blood flow) and if they are wearing body armor it has enough kinetic energy to knock them down.

A .45 won't knock someone down, no pistol round (and pretty much no ordinary rifle round) will.

Second that. And if it did, the shooter would have to take the same amount of recoil (though they are going to expect it).

I use a .45 because they are LESS likely to kill (the force of the round and the tissue damage will send a normal person into shock, slowing blood flow)

Less likely to kill? The US has used .45 rounds for the purpose of killing people for decades.

Shock is something that kills people, not keeps them alive.

 

[TakerFoxx]

If they don't shoot to kill why are there so many stories of them shooting people in the back and shooting people who are restrained, getting a few weeks paid vacation then coming back to work because they didn't violate department policy? I'm more afraid of the police than I am of walking through the ghetto with $1000 in cash on me.

Because stories about bad news and corrupt authority figures are the most likely to attract attention, ergo they're the ones that make headlines. And in a country as large and diverse as the US, there's a fair number to choose from. Stories about police behaving themselves and going out of their way to do good don't gain viewers, as such you never hear about them, even though they outnumber the bad ones by a huge percentage. Just the other day I saw a cop park his car and walk up to a homeless guy that was wandering around a gas station and assumed it was to tell him to get lost. Instead, he handed the homeless guy a bag of food and a cup of coffee. You think things like that ever make the news? Very rarely. But once a cop screws up, you better believe everyone will hear about it.

 

[Coppernerves]

Far as I can make out, the phrase "shoot to kill" is used to acknowledge that whoever gets shot has a fair chance of dying, while the actual intention is to neutralise.

In a situation which justifies shooting, eg someone about to shoot someone else, shooting to wound takes time and is unreliable.

I do wonder why tasers or baton round launchers aren't mounted under the barrels of UK officers' MP5s and G36-Cs, to give them a quicker non-lethal option while maintaining firepower.

If they don't shoot to kill why are there so many stories of them shooting people in the back and shooting people who are restrained, getting a few weeks paid vacation then coming back to work because they didn't violate department policy? I'm more afraid of the police than I am of walking through the ghetto with $1000 in cash on me.

Because stories about bad news and corrupt authority figures are the most likely to attract attention, ergo they're the ones that make headlines. And in a country as large and diverse as the US, there's a fair number to choose from. Stories about police behaving themselves and going out of their way to do good don't gain viewers, as such you never hear about them, even though they outnumber the bad ones by a huge percentage. Just the other day I saw a cop park his car and walk up to a homeless guy that was wandering around a gas station and assumed it was to tell him to get lost. Instead, he handed the homeless guy a bag of food and a cup of coffee. You think things like that ever make the news? Very rarely. But once a cop screws up, you better believe everyone will hear about it.

If you're interested in a high profile case involving a police shooting, which isn't about the police screwing up, the murder of Lee Rigby comes to mind:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25450555

It sounds like the police fired quite a few shots (8 plus a taser it turns out), but I really don't know how much 9 mil it takes to drop a man, they started giving first aid straight after, and both perps survived despite intent to be martyred.

 

[Goro]

Is anyone in this thread a law enforcement officer, or military?
Police, do not, ever, EVER, shoot to kill. It's that simple. My 10 year anniversary is coming around in... hell, 3 days!... and I can tell you explicitly the phrase 'shoot to kill' is not used by any of Australia's law enforcement bodies.
When you draw your firearm, it's on the expectation of extreme violence, it's on the expectation of having to end a threat. You use force to end the threat. A firearm is pretty forceful, a .40 semi-jacket hollowpoint (like the one I carry) will mushroom inside a target, causing the most damage to the target while reducing penetration and limiting the chance of the round hitting someone else once it passes through a target. Incidentally, it's centre of SEEN mass. Your target may be behind cover, you may be behind cover, whatever. If centre of seen mass is the thigh, and you have to shoot, then thigh it is. The objective is to end the threat. I'm trained to shoot until the threat is neutralised, assessing the whole time, then handcuff the offender and call an ambulance. (I once chased a meth-head who jumped from a second story window 2km, both his ankles were paste but he was trippin' balls, don't tell me a shot person won't get up). If that threat dies from the force inflicted on him, well, here's hoping it was a clean shoot.
As for shooting positions, yep i've learnt prone forward, prone backward, kneeling supported/unsupported, standing supported/unsupported, and all with master/non master hand and simulating loss of limb. I'm a pretty good shot, standing unsupported at 7m I can group to ~6cm. After running a km wearing body armour then doing sprints, then doing push ups it looked like I was using a shotgun. And that was half the adrenalin I had in my body the first time I drew my firearm.
Most police shootings occur as the officer approached an unknown offender, vehicle intercepts are the worst. Domestics are also great, I've knocked on doors and had Angry Dad tell me to leave, his shotgun as incentive.
This post has been a bit waffly, I know, but use of force escalates and de-escalates. Deadly force authorised is movie-speak pure and simple, and until you've been at the pointy end and thought 'Holy hell, I'm gonna have to shoot this guy' your input is noted, and dismissed.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Snip

It is very, very hard to reliably shoot someone in a disabling but non-lethal manner. The shoulder, for example, is a very small, hard to hit target. It's an object the size of a baseball, which will move around a lot. It will be constantly blocked/obscured by the arms, particularly if said arm is wielding a weapon. Also, a smashed shoulder is a SERIOUS injury. There are major veins going though the shoulder. Slice one, and the guy can bleed out very quickly. They lived, that arm could be crippled for life. Also, there are many situations where you can't afford to have the person twitch in pain, like say, a criminal is holding a gun to somebody's head. Death will make all muscles relax, pain will make the body tense up.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Nice to see the clueless chiming in. I use a .45 because they are LESS likely to kill (the force of the round and the tissue damage will send a normal person into shock, slowing blood flow) and if they are wearing body armor it has enough kinetic energy to knock them down.

A .45 won't knock someone down, no pistol round (and pretty much no ordinary rifle round) will.

I also remember an episode of mythbuster where they unload a pig corpse hung a hook (in such a way that it would take very little force at all to make it fall off) and unloaded several fully automatic weapons at body at once. They only managed to cause the pig to fall off once, and that was because their bullets caused it shake a little bit.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Also, there are many situations where you can't afford to have the person twitch in pain, like say, a criminal is holding a gun to somebody's head. Death will make all muscles relax, pain will make the body tense up.

Not entirely true, spasming is always an issue. To stop all movement, you have to destroy the brain or nervous system, or block the signal. Neck, and parts of the head are targeted by police snipers because of this.

 

[freedash22]

The 1986 FBI shootout is a good point and was my consideration for getting a .45ACP FNP-45 rather than a .38 or 9mm or .40S&W pistol.

FYI the .40S&W was invented because of that shootout. FBI got the 10mm first then cut it down into .40S&W. The FBI were not underpowered in that shootout in the slightest. They panicked and blamed it on their guns which were .38 Special, 9mm and 357 Magnum against 2 guys with no armor. .38 Special isn't a caliber that I would use, but 9mm and 357 Mag are more than enough to kill a man especially with today's bullet designs like soft and hollow point. Check this chart: http://www.chuckhawks.com/handgun_power_chart.htm As you can see, 9mm, 40, and 45 all have 90+% one shot stop potential. Basically, it comes down to which caliber you prefer to use as they are all lethal as fuck. Me, for example, I carry a 9mm. I also have a 45 1911 which I love. However, I will never own a .40 because the recoil is so snappy and hurts my wrist after a while.

Yes, I am aware of that. The .40 S&W is a performer when it comes to ballistics. I have faith in this caliber but I just decided to go 1 step further to the .45. The recoil feels better for me and reloaded cartridges are cheaper at the range.

I know this is out of topic, but the Chinese Media today just declared the PLA's intention to invade the Philippines in Pag-asa (Freedom) islands within the year because they think it is theirs when it has been our territory for ages. So much for shooting to disable. Now everybody is very worried and those who can are now talking about legally purchasing automatic assault rifles in preparation for homeland defense.

http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2014/01/13/1278317/reports-china-plans-seize-pag-asa-island-year

 

[Thaluikhain]

automatic assault rifles

As an aside, all assault rifles are capable of automatic fire, by definition.

 

[Timberwolf0924]

Now I don't know if this has been said, or something similar, because I don't want to read through all 180+ comments.

But a few months ago I was at a gun range where law enforcement actively go to. I have a 12 gauge shotgun for home defense and was shooting it. I went to buy ammo, and asked for non-lethal rounds for home defense and the officer next to me told me that it was a bad idea.

He told me that if someone has a shotgun that holds 6 shells, and the first 2 or 3 are non-lethal rounds, and you shoot the guy, but he doesn't stop, and you end up killing him, they'll want to know why you were 'in fear for your life' from the first 3 shots. Also if you shoot someone with non-lethal ammo, and it breaks say their collar bone, or ribs, or even hits them in the face and breaks something there, they can sue you. Why, because you didn't feel in fear for you life enough to use lethal ammo, so you shouldn't have used them at all. Also shooting to wound is the same thing, if you shoot a guys hand off in a fire fight and you were aiming for the hand, he can end up suing you, and potentially winning, because you marred him for life.

The officer told me "shoot to kill if your house is being invaded, because you're no longer the victim 6 months down the road, and the guy can't talk any more because you hit him in the throat with a bean bag round.

Yes maybe there are officers here that can verify/counter this argument, but that's what I was told first hand by an officer.

 

[VodkaKnight]

Killing people is wrong, and even if you do shoot to disable, then they might still die.
Being shot in the leg can rupture your heart from the shock, so neither is ideal.
I'd like to say 'Shoot to disable' but I honestly can't.

 

[cikame]

The chest is a huge target compared to an arm or a leg, even if hitting someones gun arm is a certainty it might not do anything, the adrenaline rush means you might not even feel any pain from being shot right away and could still get a shot off. Shooting to disable in real life actually means shoot then give medical attention, it's the only way it can play out.

Regarding the Duggan case here in the UK, this is a criminal with a history of violence who was observed being handed a gun, in my eyes that can only end in two ways either giving up or being shot.

 

[spartan231490]

a) Trained professionals are vastly more effective than enthusiastic amateurs.

b) Stupid speculative thread is full of stupid speculation by people who have never used a variety of firearms, least of all in a situation where your decision window is contracted.

c) Shooting someone is random, unless you are using a high velocity round, in which case hydrostatic shock is your friend and any hit near important meat is likely to kill due to shock (from liquefaction of nearby vessels and attendant blood loss).

d) The more people with guns, the more likely someone will get shot. The UK has very restrictive laws on gun usage and ownership and always has, which results in very few people owning guns, even when it was still legal. Regardless of whining about gun control and right to defence (because a handgun helps you deflect/dodge a bullet/is known to discourage criminality, just look at the US), the fact remains that gun crime and by association murder, is much rarer per capita in every other Western country.

e) If you look into the historical background, the US port arms not because of "freedom" but because they didn't want to have to submit to levies for European wars. Up until the late 1700s, the reason why English people weren't allowed to bear firearms was because the longbow was still a superior weapon. In fact, be it the civil war, Vietnam, the Gulf War I/II or Afghanistan, the entire history of American warfare has been dictated by utilising excessive technological superiority.

f) Please don't take my word for it. Find a few sources on the internet or print, then look it up. If I'm wrong, then you can gleefully post a rebuttal.

a) Wrong: http://actionamerica.org/guns/guns1.shtml Police make mistakes much more often than "enthusiastic amateurs," Partially because an "enthusiastic amateur" will practice far more often than is required of so-called "trained-experts" and probably also because a police uniform makes you target number one, resulting in less time to make a decision.

b) Opinion is speculative as well. You have no idea what the experiences of the people posting here are.

c) What the hell do you mean by "shooting someone is random?" That doesn't even make sense. You better hope the person shooting is aiming instead of just pointing in the general direction and pulling the trigger.

d) Again wrong: http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf http://dailyanarchist.com/2012/07/31/auditing-shooting-rampage-statistics/ http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp I could spend days just on this, long story short, there is less evidence that gun control reduces murder rates than there is to show that gun control doesn't.

e) Yeah, also wrong: The incident that triggered Lexington and Concord was an attempted gun confiscation, not a new tax.

f) You asked for it.

 

[Gorrath]

Is anyone in this thread a law enforcement officer, or military?
Police, do not, ever, EVER, shoot to kill.

I served in the U.S. military and participated in several conflicts which required the use of deadly force. I'm not wholly sure what you were driving at but I'd not say it's fair to dismiss anyone's opinion because they lack personal experience. A person can understand the theory without ever having a shooter turned on them. I'm not sure what you mean by saying that Police never shoot to kill. If you mean that they are trained to use whatever the minimal necessary force is needed to end a particular situation, sure, I can get behind that. If you mean to say that police don't shoot with the specific intent to end someone's life, I'd say that might be a matter of semantics. Certainly police special operations teams aren't putting two in the chest, one in the head with the idea that the suspect is supposed to survive the encounter.

While I do understand that we'd prefer the suspects to live through any use of force, so long as they are completely disabled for the duration of the operation, one does not generally put bullets in people's brains with the idea that they'll survive. In this sense, I don't see how one could claim that Police never shoot to kill, even if the survival of the suspect is preferable to their death. Your job isn't to kill suspects but to neutralize threats under specific circumstances (escalation/de-escalation, as you mentioned) but I think we might be flirting with semantics when neutralizing a threat includes pumping a few rounds into vital places.

Anywho, I respect your point of view and get where you are coming from. There is no lingo for "Kill the suspect" because ideally you never would have to. Any shooting that is done is meant for threat neutralization, not killing specifically.

 

[happyninja42]

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 officers 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.

Couple reasons I can think of. And sorry if this is repeating previous posts.
1. They have other tools that are non lethal to try and take someone down. When it's time to pull out the gun, that is when all other options have failed, and the threat is still active, and a danger to society.
2. Shooting at someone in a real situation isn't as easy as it seems in movies and stuff. Where guys are shooting people with pistols from across football stadiums, right in the eye, all the while banging the hot lead chick in the movie (yep, gunfight mid sex actually happened in a movie. Shoot Em Up) Accuracy in real life is very hard to maintain over distance, coupled with stress, nerves, adrenaline, etc. The decision to train to hit the center mass, is to make sure you hit the target in question. If the cop misses, trying to hit the very small target like a hand, or shoulder, relative to the center mass, there is a very good chance that he will miss. And now there is a lethal slug flying through a city, and who know's what innocent bystander it might hit that just happens to be in the line of fire. So if you are going to shoot, you do everything you can, to make sure that you hit the threat, not the innocent. Thus, you go for center mass, the largest target available.
3. Some of the non lethal methods might not actually stop the threat from continuing what they are doing. The police's job is to the citizen, and the public. When there is a threat to them, it's his job to look after them first. If hitting a guy with say...pepper spray, isn't likely going to get him to stop stabbing that girl, and that he would most liekly be able to get several more stabs in, even through the pepper spray, you have to use the tool that will stop him from being a threat, as quickly as possible, with the minimum of continued risk to the public and the victims. This means that sometimes, lethal force must be used.

That's my 2 cents on why they're not trained to shoot to wound. It's just not practical for a gun, which is why they came up with other things for them to use that are non-lethal.

 

[The Event]

I'm not sure what you mean by saying that Police never shoot to kill.

It means that killing the target is not the objective of shooting them, merely a likely outcome.
Police shoot to stop. They aim at the parts of the body which when shot will cause the most rapid incapacitation. The shooting of these parts is also likely to result in the death of the person being shot.

If shooting to kill were the objective, then shooting someone in the stomach and causing a non survivable wound that will kill them 20 minutes later would be a valid tactic. It isn't because doing so does not immediately incapacitate the subject.

Just for fun let's watch the dramatisation of the 1986 Miami FBI shootout

Platt (David Soul's character) was a walking dead man from the hit he took while exiting the car. See what damage he did after it. If the goal were shoot to kill - then job done. If the goal was shoot to stop, job failed.

 

[Gorrath]

I'm not sure what you mean by saying that Police never shoot to kill.

It means that killing the target is not the objective of shooting them, merely a likely outcome.
Police shoot to stop. They aim at the parts of the body which when shot will cause the most rapid incapacitation. The shooting of these parts is also likely to result in the death of the person being shot.

If shooting to kill were the objective, then shooting someone in the stomach and causing a non survivable wound that will kill them 20 minutes later would be a valid tactic. It isn't because doing so does not immediately incapacitate the subject.

Just for fun let's watch the dramatisation of the 1986 Miami FBI shootout

Platt (David Soul's character) was a walking dead man from the hit he took while exiting the car. See what damage he did after it. If the goal were shoot to kill - then job done. If the goal was shoot to stop, job failed.

Indeed, and I spent the better part of my post explaining exactly that. But I find the argument to be silly semantics. The goal of wars isn't to kill people either, it is to destroy another nation's ability to conduct war. That just also happens to include dropping a lot of bombs and shooting a lot of bullets, which happen to have the unfortunate side-effect of killing a lot of soldiers. I could say that in war, we NEVER shoot to kill, we shoot to disable the enemy, it's just that the methods we use happen to be really, really lethal. I would not presume to say that we don't shoot to kill people though, since that would ignore the whole fact that putting bullets in people has a tendency to kill them.

This is especially pertinent to this thread, as the distinction between "shoot to kill" vs "shoot to wound" has specific connotations that have nothing to do with the intent to end someone's life, but rather the way in which force is used to bring as rapid an end to an escalated situation as possible. An argument about the semantics of shoot to kill as intent has little bearing on the point of the thread, so far as I understand it. I am not attempting to belittle your point either, just explaining why Id on't think it's useful in this context. Any more than me arguing in a thread about war that the goal of wars isn't to kill people.