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Comment by bakuninsbart | Hacker News Reader

Americans certainly know more than western/northern Europe about shooting people, but police here is trained to shoot to incapacitate, and it generally seems to work, as the fatality rate of police shootings is only about half as high as in the US.

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"...but police here is trained to shoot to incapacitate, and it generally seems to work."

I've never heard of this practice, and the opposite is regularly taught to various armed forces around the world. I'm curious to read about it, do you have any info or sources to share?

You really need a citation for the notion that police in any part of the world are trained to shoot to incapacitate rather than kill. Firearms are deadly weapons. Shots aimed at any part of the body can easily be fatal because there are arteries everywhere.

Half seems insignificant since in America the shootings are more commonly two sided, which warrants more deadly use of force. You wouldn't stop with the first bullet if your target had a gun in their hand(as opposed to a knife).

If the target has a gun in their hand no doubt they represent a threat. Use the body cam to prove that and you're good in the eyes of the law. But, I've seen plenty of people fleeing being shot and that is just so wrong, the said cop being the justice and the executioner, with a decision which they have taken in blink. And I've seen cases where the cop got away with it and that is what hot buttoned the protesters.

Police in Europe is more trained in general. Something like 9 months of training to become a police officer in the US vs two or three years in western/northern Europe.

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