Replies

“She needs to know that shooting to hurt just doesn’t work.”

I know nothing about firearms. But what is the empirical basis for your claim? I thought law enforcement officers, in particular, were trained to shoot to disable, rather than kill, their targets. Presumably the risk of killing is always present, and this risk should not inhibit expeditious use of the firearm when warranted. But all other things being equal, is a dead assailant truly better than an effectively disabled one? Not trying to be combative: I seriously want to understand how one would arrive at this conclusion.

All of which is to say, IF one can be effectively trained to reliably disable a threat, I can understand the woman’s preferring a weapon that accomplishes that task over a weapon that dispenses with this possibility entirely in favor of tipping the odds of an encounter becoming lethal.

As a possibly less emotionally charged example, some people may well prefer a “catch and release” approach to dealing with a beaver that is creating havoc in a residential neighborhood over the alternative of killing the critter etc. So long as the trapped beaver can be released into an area sufficiently wild and remote to preclude its return to the neighborhood in question, it’s not obvious why killing it is the preferred approach.

>>I know nothing about firearms. But what is the empirical basis for your claim? I thought law enforcement officers, in particular, were trained to shoot to disable, rather than kill, their targets. Presumably the risk of killing is always present, and this risk should not inhibit expeditious use of the firearm when warranted. But all other things being equal, is a dead assailant truly better than an effectively disabled one? Not trying to be combative: I seriously want to understand how one would arrive at this conclusion.<<

Knowledge of firearms and POST training guides. I don’t know where you get YOUR info, but Law Enforcement are taught to acquire and destroy their target. The head and chest are the largest areas of the human body and that is where to aim with the highest chance of destruction.

>>All of which is to say, IF one can be effectively trained to reliably disable a threat, I can understand the woman’s preferring a weapon that accomplishes that task over a weapon that dispenses with this possibility entirely in favor of tipping the odds of an encounter becoming lethal.<<

Only on TV. When you decide to use a weapon, it is for keeps. Attempting to “wing” someone just narrows the target options and probably results in a death all right — YOURS.

>>As a possibly less emotionally charged example, some people may well prefer a “catch and release” approach to dealing with a beaver that is creating havoc in a residential neighborhood over the alternative of killing the critter etc. So long as the trapped beaver can be released into an area sufficiently wild and remote to preclude its return to the neighborhood in question, it’s not obvious why killing it is the preferred approach.<<

Repeating your argument doesn’t give it credence. A weapon is designed to kill what it is pointed at. If you want non-lethal interdiction, get a taser.

I thought law enforcement officers, in particular, were trained to shoot to disable, rather than kill, their targets.

Utterly false. Police are trained to shoot at center-mass (chest), and keep shooting until the perp is no longer a threat. In a practical sense, if the perp drops his weapon, then no shot need be fired. If the perp does not, then they will empty the magazine into him, reload, and re-assess.

Your thinking in naive in the extreme. Cops are not taught to shoot to disable, they are taught to aim and shoot for center mass and to keep shooting until the assailant goes down. That is what everyone who shoots in self defense should do and will be taught to do if they take a CCW course. Shooting to wound, in fact, is against the law in many states. The reasoning is if you have to shoot you must be in fear of your life, otherwise you shouldn't be shooting at all.

As for your trapping a beaver analogy that is just ridiculous.

If a person buys a gun for self defense no matter what the caliber, they should be aware that the firearm is perfectly capable of killing someone, there are no "wounding" guns on the market. Even .22s will kill and quite quickly if one knows how to aim, regardless of what some on these threads think about small calibers.

“I know nothing about firearms. But what is the empirical basis for your claim? I thought law enforcement officers, in particular, were trained to shoot to disable, rather than kill, their targets.”

Not to be snarky, but your first sentence is correct. The rest is completely wrong. Police are trained only to pull their firearms when deadly force may be needed, and then only to shoot when deadly force is actually necessary.

And they are taught to shoot to kill, not disable.

There are a few very rare exceptions, for example a Columbus, Ohio PD sniper shooting a gun out of a mentally disturbed man’s hand. That happened several years ago. Those are VERY rare.