Comment by jMyles | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jMyles | Hacker News Reader

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It seems to me that the takeaways from stun-guns in the hands of police are simple and easy to observe:

* The instances of their use as a substitute for lethal force are vanishingly rare. So much so that it's hard to find a case by googling. They're always and only used in a lower stage of the use-of-force continuum than as a substitute for a firearm.

* They're often used completely inappropriately, with no self-defense component at all (ie, used as a way to torture people into complying).

* They're sometimes used purely as a torture device against people who are restrained, already subdued, or even already unconscious.

* They cause a lot of lasting injuries and some fatalities.

It's been an interesting experiment, but it's time to end it. Let's just remove them from the police arsenal (like we have mostly done with nunchaku, which were a less-lethal fad in the 80s and 90s).

I'm of the mind that police force needs to be more black and white, just as the law needs to be more black and white. If there is serious cause to use lethal force, the police need to use (and be trained with) dependable firearms. If there's not, then I don't really want them using weapons at all.

Let's treat failure to comply with lawful requests as a civil matter. You can continue non-compliance as long as you want, but you'll be liable for all the costs incurred by your doing so. Let's not torture or injure people on this basis.

This middle-ground / gray area in the use-of-force continuum creates a strange mindset for everyone involved. Are the police simply dispassionately enforcing discrete laws? Or are they forcing their own will or an unwritten will of the state?

> They're always and only used in a lower stage of the use-of-force continuum than as a substitute for a firearm.

The real problem here is that, in the US, there is no real reason for the police not to use lethal force once the situation has got even slightly violent; and once they've killed the only witness, they can retroactively claim the situation was more violent than it actually was.

Comparable UK Taser stats: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/16/timeline-of-ta...

Not strictly relevant but since I dug it up: use of force policy, or how the UK police manage to handle 99.9% of situations without carrying firearms https://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/sites/default/files/file...

> there is no real reason for the police not to use lethal force once the situation has got even slightly violent

Also interesting to note that even private citizens who are armed and are using it in self defense, are instructed to shoot to kill only. Obviously they are first told that it should only happen if their or others lives are in danger, but once the firearm comes up basically just empty the magazine as fast possible without hesitation.

The logic is a bit like above. Shooting to wound, brandishing the weapon to scare, threatening, all those things end up "not working out" legally as well as killing the person as quickly as possible.

Basically hesitating or wounding or scaring all can be later reinterpreted in court as "your life wasn't really in danger if you hesitated and just shot to maim, so you shouldn't have even pulled the deadly weapon out to begin with". Also I can see that even the perpetrator (say the burglar) might be justified in suing the owner if the owner pull the weapon out and wounds him. The burglar might even be justified in pulling his/her own weapon and shooting back because now the situation is threatening their lives. So to avoid that mess, just empty the magazine.

> even private citizens who are armed and are using it in self defense, are instructed to shoot to kill only

That's not because of the legal ramifications, though. Shooting to wound is very very difficult especially in a crisis. The limbs are much smaller targets than the torso and move much more rapidly and unpredictably. Additionally, they are trained to keep firing because even lethal gunshots tend not to be immediately incapacitating. Due to the effects of adrenaline, people can continue fighting even after being shot in the torso a half dozen times.

In short, guns are terrible non-lethal weapons.

"The burglar might even be justified in pulling his/her own weapon and shooting back because now the situation is threatening their lives."

In the US, there's the "Clean Hands" doctrine that excludes a legal defense of self defense from anyone who was committing a crime at the time. The hypothetical burgler would just be adding charges.

Instructed by whom?

I'm kind of reminded of the stories of Chinese road traffic accidents where the advice is to make sure the victim is dead - reverse over him if necessary - rather than any other outcome.

UK law very definitely requires you to stop shooting immediately once the danger is past - see R v Clegg.

> UK law very definitely requires you to stop shooting immediately once the danger is past

US law as well. If an assailant is obviously incapacitated or surrendering, it's illegal to keep shooting them.

That doesn't really conflict with what the grandparent post says: self defense firearms instructors typically teach students to fire multiple shots at the torso of an assailant, often to continue firing until the assailant stops being an obvious threat. It's risky to shoot someone who's attacking you and stop to see whether it worked.

As an example of the reasoning for this kind of instruction, here's an account of a gunfight between a police officer and a murder suspect. The suspect continued shooting after taking several bullets to the chest and tried to drive away after being shot a total of 22 times.

http://lawofficer.com/archive/officer-down-the-peter-soulis-...

> Instructed by whom?

By instructors. As in those who advise or train people to use firearms.

Here are just two examples I found:

http://www.secondcalldefense.org/brandishing-and-warning-sho...

Here is a reddit post discussion someone being surprised by this advice:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CCW/comments/3e5jn6/my_cwp_instruct...

> UK law very definitely requires you to stop shooting immediately once the danger is past - see R v Clegg.

Pretty sure so does the US law. It comes to how determination of "danger is past" happens. There are two aspects there I can think of : 1) This idea that acting too calculating and methodical, shooting one round in the leg, waiting, seeing them crawl and reach for their firearm, shooting another round, etc might not play well in court as the jury might look at it and say "hmm, he had time sit around and think and observe, why didn't he run to save his life at that point" it becomes dubious that this was self defense it starts to look like attempted murder there. While something like "life was in danger, reacted quickly, shot all the rounds, etc". Not saying one way is right or wrong it is just juries I think are inclined to acquit in the later case. 2) There is probably the same perverse idea as the Chinese drivers backing up and making sure they really crush that victim well enough for them to die, because then a dead person they can't sue in a civil court.

>Also interesting to note that even private citizens who are armed and are using it in self defense, are instructed to shoot to kill only

This is the bullshit cliff notes watered down for stupid people who can't think for themselves.

You escalate use of force until the threat is stopped. If someone comes at you with a shovel and backs down when you draw your gun you do not just shoot him because "that's what you do". If you do not need to fire your weapon to stop the threat then you should not fire your weapon. You should not draw a gun if you are not prepared to use it. If you shoot someone in the kneecap you'd better be damn good at convincing the court that it was because you have cop-quality marksmanship.

Obviously once a gun comes out you should call the cops to CYA but you are not obligated to shoot someone just because you've drawn a gun.

> cop-quality marksmanship

What is that exactly? Good or bad?

The GP is using it as an insult.

Handgun training and competence varies tremendously between different cities and departments. Overall, I think most departments gotten drastically better over the last twenty years.

Handgun skills decline quickly without use. For a long time most American police departments only required officers to qualify once a year, and the test was easy.

Your average civilian handgun shooting enthusiast who shoots once or twice a month is probably better than your average police officer at hitting targets, simply because or the range time difference.

An oft quoted number that I can't source says that the average officer fires six shots per hit.

However, your average police officer should be able to handle stress better, should be used to fighting back at people trying to hurt them, and should be able to work with other officers as a team.

Yup.

It's pretty terrible considering that "downrange" for where cops operate is usually not stuff you want to hit with bullets. There was a certain incident several years back in a suburb of Boston that illustrated this very well.

The mag dumping behavior and complete disregard for what's behind the target annoys me much more than the accuracy shortcomings.

The problem that stun guns are designed to address does exist. There is a place in use-of-force continuum between shouting and shooting. You can't really require police officers to get into fistfights, especially when they are at a disadvantage because of weight, age, gender, etc.

Like any technology, stun guns can be misused, and oftentimes are. It's important to recognize this problem and address it, through raising awareness, improving training, etc. If you simply take stun guns away, the police will simply shoot people with real guns more.

> when they are at a disadvantage because of weight, age, gender, etc.

Private security, club bouncers, bodyguards, all seem to be trained and conditioned for physical advantage, but I've seen a lot of out of shape officers, at least in the US.

I wonder if we're leaning on force equalizers too much, or if it's just something that's happened organically.

Private security, bouncers, etc. do not have the legitimization of the force of state behind them. Police are "allowed" to be violent because it is the state being violent, not a privately employed individual. That changes the ballgame significantly.

Should it? A totally different question. Does it? Incontrovertible.

I agree that this is the case, at least in the mindset of everyone involved.

But then how do we reconcile the fact that, at least in common law societies, it is not the case de jurie? If the laws surrounding this are different from the reality, haven't we lost our claim to be a society of laws and not of men?

That's a big question, isn't it.. and I think in part, the answer is yes. When we make exceptions to the law, even if convenient at the time, that's exactly what we lose. If we make exception after exception until the law is a watered down toothless goat, well...

Can you give me (or via comment or a link) an example of a hypothetical scenario in which force is required, but unarmed force won't do?

A combative 6'2", 215# body-builder high on PCP or methamphetamine, acting aggressively in a public place.

If that's not enough, give him a bat or a knife as well.

As a lowly brown-belt at a dojo in a small town, I've actually trained (or at least begun the training of) several police officers.

The things I'd tell them in response to your hypothetical:

* If somebody is attacking somebody with a deadly weapon, you don't use a stun-gun, and neither to do the police. You use a 9mm.

* In the unarmed scenario, you need two trained police officers. Two people, well-trained and with good teamwork, can usually restrain even a huge, out-of-control person.

If they can't, I advocate adding more peacekeepers (police officers or other trained citizens), not more weapons.

Additionally, the scenario you describe is fairly rare. I prefer adding what might seem like logistical inconveniences to very rare scenarios if it means adding clarity and peace to much more common ones.

(side note: a very senior practitioner in my lineage was kicked out of the association in large part because, as a police officer, he was found to have acted brutally and unethically - his name is not even mentioned at my dojo. That might give you a sense of the commitment to good purpose that at least some martial arts schools have regarding training agents of the state.)

> In the unarmed scenario, you need two trained police officers. Two people, well-trained and with good teamwork, can usually restrain even a huge, out-of-control person.

This simply is not true. There are plenty of videos out there showing one out of control person fighting off more than two cops. I used to work in a busy hospital ER on a military base, and the military police would frequently bring in drunks they arrested. On a regular basis, it would take four military police plus me and maybe another medic (if they were available) to properly restrain people. Some would fight so fiercely that they were at great risk of harming themselves, and controlling this was often the biggest part of the problem. You can't just sit on them, you have to subdue them properly. If someone is threatening your life you can choose to use deadly force in self-defense, but if not then you have to restrain them, and this takes a lot of work. Put two 'well trained' cops against one determined drunk or druggie, and you get three injured people. This is not a trivial problem.

> This simply is not true. There are plenty of videos out there showing one out of control person fighting off more than two cops.

Can you show me a video where two people (police or otherwise) show good sense and martial arts training and are still unable to restrain someone?

One of the most common things I see in these videos (and I've seen it in person, even with cops I respect) is stepping the wrong way through an armbar. Standing armbar is, without a doubt, the #1 go-to technique for police and bouncers who are trying to restrain someone without using a weapon.

If I see a video of stepping forward through an armbar instead of back, I instantly know that our system has failed that police officer in terms of understanding how their body works vis a vis restraining someone.

It's totally true that, occasionally, a single person can make themselves impossible to restrain even by two people. Even more rarely, the person in question can continue to harm other people or property.

In that scenario, as I said, I think it's better for society to commit more people to the situation rather than (what I think is the lazy and destructive inclination to) add less lethal weapons.

A friend was actually high on PCP, trained in martial arts, had a baseball bat, and was beating on a row of expensive cars. It took 6 cops to restrain him, but frankly the cops where never in significant danger so that was a rational response on their part.

Granted, he was not 215 lb, but it's still close to what your describing and nobody got shot. Just raw physical force and handcuffs from several well trained cops.

PS: He also just got probation, but that's the rich, white, clean record advantage in action.

> PS: He also just got probation, but that's the rich, white, clean record advantage in action.

That's probably the reason he wasn't shot dead by the police.

Why are you friends with this person?

Not GP, but... ... sometimes your friends make stupid decisions after you've befriended them ... sometimes you befriend people who have made stupid decisions in the past ... sometimes you make stupid decisions with your friends

Well we group up together. But, you are also jugging him from one incident. He also volunteered regularly and was generally just a nice guy who sometimes did really dumb things.

Thanks for answering. I guess I didn't mean my question to come off as a condescending or rhetorical question. I was hoping he had redeeming qualities. But getting high on PCP and busting up people's cars and getting into rows with the police is still pretty anti-social behavior.

This is an example of a lazy argument for not being taken from a real-world case that isn't an outlier, and one that is compatible with the image of police portrayed on cop shows, so people are conditioned to glom onto it.

It also ignores cases where private security has to deal with violent drunks (not an outlier at all) without tasers.

And this is how poor police performance in the US continues to get a pass.

GP called for a hypothetical example. I provided. I'm sorry that you feel that's lazy.

Would you share with us how you'd prefer the police to handle that situation?

The UK police would handle it with a combination of CS spray and side-handled batons.

https://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/sites/default/files/file... actually provides a worked example, including the paperwork you need to fill out after whacking someone in the head.

I explained that by way of pointing out the omission of addressing how private security manages to do their job without sometimes fatal electric torture devices.

Private security usually has the advantage that they are only concerned with getting the subject off/out of their property. If it gets more than they can handle, they call the police.

The police have to handle the situation with realistically no backstop and don't have the luxury of calling it quits when the problem moves over some arbitrary line on a map.

No backstop? Deescalation, backing off, and calling for sufficient help to handle a situation with a minimum of violence is exactly how better-performing police in civilized places do it.

Why remove em? We should remove guns, let most of them carry just stun gun and the ones with extensive training and experience to carry real guns.

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