Replies

Only one problem with your scenario. In this case the officers already had their guns drawn and aimed at the individual. Reaction time to simply squeeze the trigger is almost zero.

You are wrong. Don't believe me? Try this: http://getyourwebsitehere.com/jswb/rttest01.html

Keep in mind, this would be your reaction time, sitting safely behind a computer, WATCHING and waiting for the green light to appear. What's your best score?

If the man’s gun never came out of the holster they had absolutely no reason to kill him.

Absolutely wrong again, both from a physical threat perspective and from a legal standpoint. When you get a J.D. come back and talk to me about the law regarding the use of force.

That's the problem though - almost every cop on the street *thinks* he's an expert on the law and acts like he has a JD. Most also think their gun skills are second only to Annie Oakley herself. And more than a few think they're tough guy Navy Seal-Army Ranger-Olympic decathalon hybrids.

The reality is far different, and it attests to the arrogance that is pervasive in the policing profession. The qualifications for a typical entry level cop job in the United States are on par with McDonalds, i.e. a GED...only police departments also have something McDonalds typically does not - preferential hiring to less-qualified candidates through affirmative action. Even the more "educated" cops out there seldom possess more than an associates degree from a community college or one of those online schools that advertises on late night television. A small handful of cops will eventually work their way through law school so they can have a little extra work on the side when they retire at 45 with full pension, but even then its not Harvard Law. It's night school at the local third, fourth, or fifth tier law school that mostly specializes in churning out people who file asbestos lawsuits and also advertise on late night television.

If someone is in my sights, I assure you that my reaction time would be more than sufficient to differentiate between a man removing a holstered weapon from his belt and a man who was taking that weapon out of that holster. And I’m not a trained LEO.

And the weight in a situation where the man in my sights is in a crowd of innocent bystanders would sway heavily towards not pulling the trigger until I’m positive he is really a threat to anyone.