I’m ex-military, and I couldn’t come close. My SIL is ex-USMC infantry, and he’s never seen anyone come close to doing that in combat.
Your examples are a bit flawed. Jerry Miculek once fired 6 shots from a revolver, reloaded and fired 6 more shots in under 3 seconds. That is hardly a realistic example of what an average person can do with a 6 shot revolver...
Thank you for your service and that of your SIL to out country
If you read my original post, the point I was trying to make was this - if the police officers were in an area that was filled with a number of innocent bystanders and they say a guy carrying what appears to be an illegal AK-47 the thoughts that could be going through the cops minds that the guy was about to do a gangster style, or mass murder type shooting.
And they may have acted accordingly to protect the people or themselves. We don't know the circumstances and we were not there.
In order to shut down the pointless debate on how many angels can be shot on the head of a pin with with an AK-47 I hear by officially retract any representations on the body count that could be generated by an AK in any given space of time under any conditions.
It's irrelevant because law abiding gun owners don't shoot anyone unless they defending their lives and that fact is proven by hard statistics.
The big issue I have here is that the gun in question, under close inspection, seriously looks like a AK -47 with the barrel sawed down to 12 inches (the barrel is in fact sawed down to around 12”, it's just not an AK-47)
Mere possession of a rifle with a barrel less than 16” is a felony good for 10 years in federal prison unless it is registered as a Class III weapon under the National Firearms Act (NFA).
As an ex military weapons professional, I am sure you are fully aware of this fact.
It turns out AK-47s with a sawed off barrel are all the rage with the teen aged gangster spray and pray who are committing a lot of the gangland drug related murders .
This pellet rifle appears to have been modified to look for all the world to be a fully loaded illegal sawed off weapon which is the popular in the local gang culture, and the mere possession of which is a felony good for 10 years in Club Fed.
According to another poster , the 13 year old victim has a Facebook page that suggests he was a gangster wannabe, in which case his intent may have been to intentionally make it look like he was a bad guy in the hood carrying a sawed off AK. He also reportedly had been dressed in a fashion that fits the gang banger profile.
The area where the shooting occurred is an area where gang violence is common and a significant problem so, from a police officer's perspective, the whole scenario fit the text book set up for gang related spray and pray shooting where a lot of innocent bystanders get shot up in an area where such events are most expected to happen.
This is exactly the type of situation where one would most hope a police officer could intervene to prevent a tragedy.
This does not excuse the behavior of the officers involved ( and it is not obvious that any excuse is need as their actions may prove justified) , but it does add context as to why they may have made a well intentioned, snap decision based on the best information the officers had under the circumstances that resulted in a terrible mistake.
There is saying ,”when seconds count, the police are just minutes away”.
This is an unfortunate case where when seconds count, the police actually were on the scene and in those critical seconds that count, they made a decision based visual cues that fit the profile of a gangster carrying a gangster weapon, that in retrospect was tragic when it was later found that the gangster weapon was very well done mock up of a real gangster gun.
Consider this, if that AK-47 that is indistinguishable from a real one had turned out to be a real, fully loaded sawed off barrel AK -47 gang banger special, that shooting would have been viewed as a justified shooting that may have saved the lives of many people.
How could those officers have known it was not real as they drove up and got out of their car, and had to make a snap, on the spot decision in a time “when seconds count”.
I apologize to anyone here I may have offended, but I was and continue to be very offended by the comments that these officers were blood thirsty psychopaths bent on killing poor children, or that they were reckless, irresponsible cowards without any proof that that is the case.
Our police officers are dealing with situations on the street that are every bit as bad as our troops had to deal with in Iraq and in some of our cities the body count is actually higher than it was in Iraq.
A 13 year old with basically a toy gun.
There is no justification.
It turns out AK-47s with a sawed off barrel are all the rage with the teen aged gangster spray and pray who are committing a lot of the gangland drug related murders .
Let me ask for those statistics, how many people in this country have been shot by an AK-47? Must be thousands and thousands....
Wonderful post, and thank you for taking the time to write it. As I understand it, the body count in Chicago is actually higher than in Afghanistan. I don’t know what the casualty numbers are in Santa Rosa, but from what some people here are saying, it’s no urban paradise.
>> but I was and continue to be very offended by the comments that these officers were blood thirsty psychopaths bent on killing poor children
Your hyperbole demonstrates your ignorance.
“Our police officers are dealing with situations on the street that are every bit as bad as our troops had to deal with in Iraq and in some of our cities the body count is actually higher than it was in Iraq. “
Its people killing other people and all the cops do is the paperwork. They do enjoy ROE significantly weaker then the troops though.