Because the law enforcement officers have to protect their own lives. This is America, where anyone could be carrying an implement that requires two seconds to kill.
On the flip side, if there really is a threat, police officers have standard training which makes it clear that they have less than three seconds to react, before they are killed.
Bringing their weapon to a ready state, actually increases the time that they have to react, and lets them make more rational decisions.
Because that’s action movie nonsense. The issue is that they pull out their guns too easily, not the place they aim them. Guns are not a tool for disarming or wounding. For one thing, a leg shot can easily kill. Second, it’s extremely difficult to make that shot with a pistol, even for trained police. Third, if someone has a weapon and they are about to kill someone (which is the only time police should be pulling out their guns), a leg shot might not stop them quickly enough. And disarming someone with a bullet is absurd except in very rare stand-off situations where the person is sitting still, and a sniper has had time to get set up.
Largely because officers don't know what situations will warrant them. and over 2,500 cops are assaulted with firearms, with 250+ of those resulting in the cop being shot each year in the US, and this often happens during routine traffic stops.
One problem among many is that US police are both allowed and trained to use deadly force very quickly, when under any kind of threat. German police will often (successfully!) shoot to disable, not to kill, even when confronted by someone armed with a knife.
It's a common American meme that when police fire a gun, the only rational decision is to shoot to kill, but it's just not true.
One of the issues with less-than-lethal weapons, is that the threshold for using force is much lower (at least in the mind of the wielder). Arm an authority with rubber hoses and you'll read stories of said authority whacking everyone as they walk down the street.
edit: In either case, it is stories like this that make me see the police as very poorly trained and generally unprofessional. Don't act like this was a product failure of some sort.
This got me thinking why police officers in the US tend to use gun as a weapon of their high priority choice.
Consider many people in the US owns gun, maybe it's because of those officers are fear of death (It's very normal) so they tend to act first to save themselves?
As an outsider, I don't think it's a good thing to allow people to own a gun. Because people are different in general, some easy to anger, some more likely to hurt other. It doesn't mean they are naturally bad, they may just need longer time to cold themselves down. And gun is too quick and lethal, ripped than chance from them.
If people need to protect themselves, maybe allowing them to own a taser instead?
Part of the reason for the quick escalation is that (American) cops are taught things like the Tueller Drill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwHYRBNc9r8 that claims that an attacker can close 21 feet in 1500 milliseconds and stab a victim so many times that even a fast ambulance response won't save him from bleeding out.
This idea means the cop has to unholster a pistol as soon as any sign of noncompliance is showm, start firing if a person "reaches for their waist", and empty the magazine because this Olympian attacker won't be stopped by a few bullets.
They just "want to get home to their families" despite the fact that car accidents are deadlier to cops and garbage men have more dangerous jobs.
Police officers in the United States, as well as in Europe are trained to shoot for the center of mass when engaging an armed attacker. Do you know why? Google "Tueller Drill" for an understanding of just how dangerous someone with a knife is to an officer - at 21 feet away, that person can close the distance and kill the officer in 1.5 seconds.
Not to derail, but the #1 reason cops reach for their weapons is because they fear a suspect has a weapon. Its a split-second, life-or-death choice. No amount of martial arts training will change that.
I just stepped through it again, and you're spinning like crazy. He doesn't extend that knife. He doesn't face the police until after he takes a bullet in his side. He never got within knife range. He never approached the police.
He did not have to be killed. You're really telling me that we can't ask for three more seconds to let him drop the knife or actually approach an officer with it?
And that's the problem with this logic. You want to allow absolute hair trigger aggression by police officers. And when you allow that, you get innocent people killed. Because the cops can't make that decision correctly every time, and if you train them to shoot first, they will.
This guy didn't have to die. I don't know what was in his head, but I know he didn't have to die.
I find it ridiculous that anyone worries about officer safety in this way. It seems almost perverse to me.
If we're worried about officers prematurely killing people how does giving them military-style tools make that any better? If they were going to prematurely kill people before, they're still going to do it. The definition of 'safe' simply moves to a new place. If the OP demonstrates anything, it's that if you give law enforcement these kinds of 'toys' they will find any and every excuse to use them (all under the fake banner of 'officer safety').
Edit: Taking some words from your comment, I guess what I'm arguing is that law enforcement is already pretty invincible.
I would imagine that guns are for those immediately life threatening emergency situations where there really is no other option. If an officer could make it back to his car, grab his gun, bring it back again and face the suspect, my guess is that would not qualify as the sort of immediately life threatening circumstance that warranted the use of deadly force
Most cops never have any reason to fire their weapon. Being a police officer is a relatively safe profession. Everyone they have contact with has legal rights.
That the police shot this person at all is a tragedy, but the number of bullets --- a detail reported brethlessly in all police shooting stories --- isn't particularly important.
Police training demands they shoot to kill. The notion of using a firearm merely to wound is mostly a TV fiction. Especially with a subject they believe to be armed (as with this case, where someone called 911 reporting a gun), if the police start shooting, they're going to make sure the target can't react. Their concern will be that even a fatal shot might leave the target with 10-15 seconds with which to get off a shot in reply.
That this is probably a reasonable thing for the police to do is, for me, a strong argument that most police should not be armed with guns. But that gets us into an unproductive discussion about American gun culture and gun control.
This is just unreasonable. Humans have a natural desire to preserve their own lives. First responders aren't any different. The idea that first responders are superheros is a fallacious trope. The vast majority of police never use their gun over their entire career.
And this is the problem with guns, imagine if the police didn't have any guns and they would have to approach him by first. Obviously they outnumber him but know (unless he has a lethal weapon on him) there shouldn't be any lethal force. Guns escalate the situation way too quickly to a life threatening one ...
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