why don’t cops aim for main arm or a leg. guy had a knife, if shot in arm or leg it would have stunned and thwarted advance of guy with knife. police were not in as much life threatening danger from the guy with knife to shoot to kill. I support poilce but some over react unnecessarily.
Children tend to think maiming is appropriate, just like children tend not to use the capitalization in their writing.
Why didn’t he just shoot the knife out of the kid’s hand? You watch WAY too much TV.
Police are not trained to shoot to wound.
“why don’t cops aim for main arm or a leg. guy had a knife, if shot in arm or leg it would have stunned and thwarted advance of guy with knife. police were not in as much life threatening danger from the guy with knife to shoot to kill. I support poilce but some over react unnecessarily.”
You’ve never been attacked have you? Look up Tueller Drill on Youtube. You aim for center of mass and keep shooting until they go down.
Outside movies and TV, what you suggest is impossible. Not even the most accurate shooter can successfully hit a moving limb unless at point blank range. Which places them in real danger from a man with a knife.
You are taught to aim at the center of a human torso (aka "center mass") This provide the greatest probability your round will strike the target, preventing them from killing/injuring you. Similarly, you don't simply fire one round, you fire until your target is down and neutralized.
Arms and legs are too skinny to hit reliably unless you have an extra second to acquire a perfect sight picture. I fire 200-plus rounds per day, and I am nowhere near good enough to shoot the knife out of an attacker’s hand or even to reliably hit a moving limb on someone charging me with a knife. I will shoot center mass to stop the threat from someone who poses an immediate danger. I’m not betting my life on that second, not to save the life of someone who initiated the threat.
The whole idea of shooting a weapon out of the hand of a person is truly false. Certainly Annie Oakley might have been able to do it but then again she was shooting at inanimate object that don't shoot back stab the person. When life and only seconds are available the office has to act and act sometimes with deadly force.
Shooting to wound is how you wind up dead in a life threatening situation.
Because it’s a devil of a job to hit an arm or leg while it’s a lot easier to hit center mass, especially when the perp is charging the cop with a deadly weapon.
I'm guessing the following apply here:
Additionally, the suspect was already too close. A miss, or even a minor hit probably, almost certainly would not have stopped the assailant. He would have reached the officer and inflicted a wound, potentially a fatal wound, with the weapon he had.
(Piling on here...)
Aw, never mind... you’ve already gotten enough replies to (hopefully) regret your post...
Multiple studies have shown that a person with a knife who is within I forget, 20 feet?, is more dangerous than a person with a gun. I was taught that because I’m an old female, even if there is no visible gun or knife, I can shoot someone coming towards me who is yelling threats.
do you have any idea how difficult it is to hit such small targets, when said targets are moving and your own adrenaline is surging?
it is the very reason everyone is taught to shoot at the largest part of the target (Center Mass), and even then most people are likely to miss.
You have been watching way too much Hollywood! ROFLMAO!
Because that is how police officers do get killed. And believe it or not most policemen are not great shots. They are trained to go for center body mass when stopping an attack. Not to do trick shooting.
Trying to aim for a hard to hit body part in a split second is extremely difficult. You try it sometime. It’s a good way to miss and have the bullet go on, travel further, go through a wall and hit an innocent bystander. Training is to aim for center body mass, to STOP, not necessarily to kill, but to deliver enough force to completely disable the attacker. If one is going to use a firearm, be sure of what you are going to hit. Don’t try to be fancy. Shooting to wound or knock a weapon out of the bad guy’s hand is only for the movie special effects.
Do you truly believe that????? You do not aim to shoot an extremity!!!! EVER!!! If you pull your weapon then you had better be planning on using it to stop the threat, not maim. A wounded animal can cause a lot more damage.
I seriously think you are on the wrong website.
Well you got schooled, but nobody gave you the legal reason cops do not shoot to wound.
A gun is a lethal weapon. So it can only be used to stop imminent bodily harm or death. Everyone, even cops have the right to defend life and limb and that right includes killing in self defense.
This does not include the right to intentionally maim or wound in self defense because either the threat is sufficient to support lethal self defense or it isn’t. If it isn’t, then it is also insufficient to support intentional maiming.
“Shooting to wound” is tactically, legally and philosophically unsound because it opens up the slippery slope of using a lethal weapon for non-lethal uses. You would get more killings, not less, only this time they would be accidental “I only meant to wound him” and result in endless litigation.
This is why you “shoot to end the threat”. You are neither trying to kill or to wound, but stop the attack, regardless of whether the attacker lives or dies.
“why don’t cops aim for main arm or a leg. guy had a knife, if shot in arm or leg it would have stunned and thwarted advance of guy with knife. police were not in as much life threatening danger from the guy with knife to shoot to kill. “
obviously your only knowledge of firearms and shooting comes from watching bad television shows ... only TV cops can shoot an arm or a leg while being mortally threatened ... in reality, it’s extremely difficult to hit ANY moving target, much less a little target like an arm or a leg ... when that moving target is someone who is shooting back or charging with a lethal weapon, accurate shooting becomes several times more difficult ... REAL cops are trained to never use lethal force unless it is necessary to save a life (including their own), and if such is necessary , then to ALWAYS aim for center mass ... period ... end of story ...