Affirmative Darius. The author has it wrong on the facts. What’s worse, is spray and pray is policy in many departments, which is why so many rounds go down range in these events (see the recent situation in Los Angeles where two women were shot in their pickup truck by Torrance PD officers). This practice (spray and pray) violates rule four of the standard gun safety rules - “Know your target and what is beyond.” We were very lucky that the Boston PD didn’t kill or wound innocent civilians. Ricochets can carry rounds quite far and away from their initial trajectory - and they are quite dangerous even at distance. This is very basic stuff for anyone who has even modest experience with firearms.
Spray and pray isn’t policy anywhere.
Umm, the cops were shooting AT their truck. They were not victims of rounds going down-range. They were victims of cops mistakenly (and really, really stupidly) misidentifying their vehicle.
If cops were TRULY trained professionals, particularly the urban cops, they would not carry machine guns. Automatic firearms tend be be “spray and pray” devices of enormous hazard to innocent bystanders.
Semi-auto weapons are VASTLY more appropriate. Even the U.S.Military knows that (though maybe the SS, er, DHS doesn’t have a clue) what with their order of thousands of machine guns (full auto ‘assault rifles’) DHS deems appropriate “for personal protection”.