The police were in the neighborhood confronting somebody with a machine gun - not smart to take an action that looks like pointing a gun in a type of situation where one side has decided they need machine guns.
It's not to excuse the behavior of the police..., but if you're pointing something at the police from across the street, it's hard to see the profile of said object...
"It's not to excuse the behavior of the police.."
And yes, your comment is excusing the behavior of the police. Just saying that you didn't just excuse their behavior doesn't mean that you didn't just do exactly that.
"you're stupid if you expect to go to a really shady part of town and not get mugged. If you get mugged, technically, it's not your fault, but you should have seen it coming."
And that's what I think about this guy getting shot. It was less about the police being justified, and more about that person not thinking about the surroundings.
Edit: FWIW I do think the policeman was overzealous.
Unarmed people shot and killed by police last year: 48
It's a touch predicament, but I don't see a universal lack of prudence.
https://www.odmp.org/search/year/2016
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo...
This is one untypical case that makes the news, so you're thinking about optimizing decision making for this case; all the cases where police actually get shot don't.
In war, soliders are required to have an extremely high degree of certainty before opening fire. I think it's pretty safe to hold a higher standard to a police force that is dealing with primarily innocent civilians.
If they don't want to risk their lives, they can find another job. That may sound unfair, but it's more unfair to kill and murder someone who poses no threat.
That applies for business and software in addition to morals...
Ugh. I wish reporters would stop embellishing stories like that with words they don't understand. An AR-15 is not in any sense a "machine gun".
[0]: http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2015/09/11/bystander-with-cel...
(The National Firearms Act doesn't analyze the tactical utility of the weapon, just whether it fires multiple rounds per trigger pull or is easily converted to do so)
You'll need to cite that. It is not in any jurisdiction I'm aware of considered to be a "machine gun". "Readily converted" is a legal term that is defined by the BATFE, and AR-15s are saleable to the public expressly because they are NOT considered readily convertible to firing multiple rounds.
If they were, they would be barred from regular sale per the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act. As an AR-15 does not require a tax stamp, it is not legally considered a machine gun. Nor is it fully automatic, easily converted to fully automatic, nor capable of select fire.
That's the specific part I guess, not "the AR 15".
Once it has been modified to full automatic fire the ease of conversion also isn't relevant.
Regardless, the AR15 is not in any way considered a machine gun until and unless it has been converted to be one.
The weapon in the link had apparently been converted and thus fell under the NFA. I was pointing at the NFA definition and included the broader provision in my summary, I didn't mean to imply that the convertibility would have been an issue in the incident being discussed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AR-15_variant
I don't know how you American call that, but I'd consider that as war equipment.
An AR-15 is neither an Assault Rifle nor a Machine Gun.
In actuality, an AR-15 is the same as any other semi-automatic rifle in function. It just looks scarier so it's treated different than others. For example, many states list the AR-15 as an "assault weapon" (made up term with no concrete definition) but don't list the Mini-14. They both fire the same round, accept the same magazines, and have the same rate of fire but the Mini-14 typically has a wooden stock which makes it "less scary" to people.
I hate that I have to be a stickler for defined terms, but on the topic of guns there is so much misinformation out there that us gun people try to correct it whenever we can.
The usual definition is quite distinct from the usual definition of machine gun.
> Both require the weapon to be "select fire" which means it can be set to fire more than one round per trigger pull.
Actually, no; the term is "selective fire", and while that's part of the usual definition of an assault rifle (which typically have semiautomatic, burst, and sometimes full-auto modes), it's not for machine gun, and machine guns are quite often full-auto only. An assault rifle also is a weapons that is deisgned to be fired unsupported (though it may also integrate a bipod) and which has a fixed, folding, or telescoping butt stock. While a machine gun may have none of those things, and may be designed to be fired only mounted.
> In actuality, an AR-15 is the same as any other semi-automatic rifle in function.
AR-15 is problematic to categorize, since the original Armalite AR-15 is a selective-fire traditional assault rifle, and other rifles to which that moniker is applied (which is sometimes used as a catch-all for the whole family of variants of that original design, which the US military adopted as the M16 series, and the M4 series) may either also be selective-fire assault rifles or civilian variants of the same design with variations in a few key components that render them semi-auto only.
At the same time, Colt currently markets a subset of it's line of civilian semi-automatic variations of that design as the AR-15 line (which was done after the Federal Assault Weapons ban specifically to take advantage of the AR-15 moniker's association with assault weapons.)
> For example, many states list the AR-15 as an "assault weapon" (made up term with no concrete definition)
Every state that has an "assault weapons" law also gives it concrete definitions. Typically, that's done by identifying both feature sets and a set of named existing weapons which are included (along with any copies or duplicates) regardless of whether they meet the feature sets.
And for the last point I know states have defined the term individually. However the ATF has never issued a letter defining "assault weapon" like they have for other grey area weapon classifications. So it's just a hodgepodge of messy rules random states have (mostly based on cosmetic features).
The rest of your comment is informative and adds to the discussion. Your parent is making a similar point, which you expand on. This last statement you add is can be read as inflammatory. Gun discussions are contentious enough as it is, particularly on the internet, and they all to often derail into all manner of increasingly flamewar topics which are tangential to the story. Can you clarify why you added this?
In most countries, this sort of equipment is definitely classified as war guns. You are prohibited from possessing one, let alone use it.
In the USA, it's more opened, some stuff you can buy, some stuff you can't buy, not sure where this one is. I believe it's being discussed in another thread here.
This has implications on the story. Knowing the kind of weapon and the local norms would give more context about the situation. Expect the police to react differently against a handgun and a military grade assault rifle (not the same type of individual on the other side either).
Judging by the "hundreds of rounds", it might have been modified to automatic or it's an old model.
Most likely not, you can empty 30 round mags in 15 seconds or so.
Maybe we could train police to distinguish between rela guns and from the multitude of other things that people might hold. Maybe we could even give them binoculars or something.
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?
Several people were pissed off about privacy violations when Google glass was becoming popular. I'm trying to apply the same principle here. Yes, ideally the guy shouldn't have died, but if I have to take sides I'm supporting the cops doing their jobs over the person doing something without full knowledge of the situation. Shoot first, ask later, was a perfectly good response in this situation, IMO.
That demands an immediate assessment of threat. I don't think it's reasonable to suggest that they just needed to wait a bit longer for more/better information to arrive when their current assessment based on the information available at that moment suggested a high risk to themselves or others.
LEO often have to deal with situations where information is imperfect (poor visibility, multiple actors, etc), and make judgement calls about what's the best/safest thing to do in the circumstances. Sometimes they get it wrong, because the information wasn't accurate enough, and sometimes they get it wrong because their training was insufficient or their judgement was flawed.
Clearly if training or poor judgement (or attitude) were factors in taking the wrong action then that should be addressed (and there may be a fair point to be made that in some jurisdictions LEO and their organisations are not held accountable enough for failures there).
And sometimes they get it right, and save the lives of themselves or others because they acted immediately.
Full disclosure: I have LEO family members (Canada), so I recognise I have some obvious bias on the topic.
[edit] looks like 'at night' may not have been correct; not sure where I got that from. I don't think it changes the argument much - information at hand is often imperfect; LEO need to act in some cases regardless of imperfect information due to the level of risk involved.
hmmm
>> I'm supporting the cops doing their jobs over the person doing something without full knowledge of the situation
Sure sounds like you are taking side....
I see this often when people excuse police abuse and over reach. They often claim they "dont want to take sides" or "dont want to defend their actions" but then proceed to defend the actions and/or take the side of the cops.
>>> but if I have to take sides
It's the asymmetry of this morality that horrifies me. I can understand people who think this is a terrible mistake but still sympathize with the officers and don't want to see them punished. But you guys... yikes.
Because LEOs were dead wrong in their immediate assessment of the danger, that means exactly that their actions were unwarranted. When you act upon a false and unwarranted belief, you don't get to say your actions were warranted.
It is very easy to tell what others should have done in a situation that they perceive as life and death.
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.
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.
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.
(Unless you are sarcastically saying that I must be trying irony.)
If the person is stopped, doesn't die, and can be subject to trial in a court of law, that is a _better_ outcome.
Edit: clarified question.
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.
Perhaps what you meant to communicate is that weapons other than inherently lethal firearms should be deployed?
I understand police should be better trained, and ideally they must shoot to stop vs shoot to kill.
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'
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
Would you clarify what you understand as the practical, effective difference between the two?
Sure reads like an excuse, Justification and Full throated defense of the police actions to me