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Comment by deadbunny | Hacker News Reader

> They've tried banning everything in England and criminals will still kill people with just about anything. First it's the guns, then knives, then machetes. You can run over people, are you gonna make cars illegal too?

We just had a Terrorist attack last week. He was armed with 2 knives and he killed 2 people before being taken down by some people with a fire extinguisher and a narwhal horn (I shit you not).

I'll take that over dozens in any shooting spree with victims in the dozens thanks.

And no, a "good guy" with a gun would have made things worse before you even start with that bullshit.

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What would you call the police officer that came with a gun?

By giving up private firearm ownership you are putting the safety of yourself and your loved ones in the hands of the government. This article is an example of why it is dangerous to do that.

>What would you call the police officer that came with a gun?

Superfluous, in this instance. It clearly would have been possible to arrest the guy without shooting him. (I believe that they only shot him on the off chance that the suicide vest was real.)

Two things:

> off chance the suicide vest was real

Would you argue that what the police officer did was wrong here? Is lethal force not justified with the credible threat of violence? I would argue that someone threatening you with a Airsoft gun with the tip taken out so it appears to be a real gun is enough to justify deadly force in self defense, you don't have to verify that gun is real. In hindsight, it is clear that you could have arrested him without shooting him, but that was not at all clear in the situation, and having that firearm could have saved dozens if the vest was real.

2. > In this instance

And, for arguments sake, if this was a different situation where the vest was real, what would you say?

Aren't these tangents? I didn't say that they shouldn't have shot him, just that it clearly wasn't necessary to shoot him in order to remove the threat. (It's obviously possible to apprehend someone armed only with a knife without shooting them.)

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