Gig 601XL Builder wrote:

"Skywise" wrote in message "Skywise"
wrote in message

I don't know how it is in other countries, or even in other parts of
the US, but law enforcement in the Los Angeles area seems to be trained
to shoot to kill. it seems that if they pull the trigger they
completely unload their weapons then reload before reassessing the
situation.

If this is not actual policy or training, it is de facto policy in
that it is how they respond. There have been two police shootings in
recent months where multiple officers unloaded into the suspect. In
one case something like 120 rounds were fired, only a handful of which
hit the suspect, and at least one round hit another officer.


Police officers are taught to shoot at the center of mass. This is to A.
give them a better chance of actually hitting what they shoot at and B.
To stop the target from doing what ever it is he is doing.

The old cowboy crap of shooting the gun out of the bad guy's hand
doesn't work because as you point they do seem to miss alot.

Well, I tend to agree that in a fluid situation that's rapidly
degenerating there may not be much you can do.

However, I recall seeing on one of them TV cop shows once where there was
a standoff situation with a man holding a gun on a hostage and a police
sniper shot the gun out of the suspects hand. Damned impressive.

No 'hollyweird' special effects.




Assuming that you mean TV cop REALITY show please keep in mind that sniper
is a VERY small subset of police shooting skill and he was probably shooting
for the guys head anyway and missed.

We had a police officer here shoot the gun of a crazy that had a revolver
cocked and aimed at his own head. But he spent several seconds aiming and he
got lucky. Later the gun was examinied and the crazy did pul the trigger
after it was hit. The only reason it didn't fire was the hammer was jamed
due to the damage done by the police officer's shot. THe really bad part of
this was that the crazy and his family sued the officer and the city. The
case was setteled out of court.

Just to keep this thread somewhat on topic years ago we had a problem of
many deers on the runway at the airport. The PD's Emergency Reaction Team
(AKA SWAT) decided to use it as a training excersise. 5 "snipers" along with
their spoters surrounded the suspect deers and when through the entire
process of setting up their shots just as they might in a multi badguy
hostage situation. When the commander gave the go code there was much sound
and smoke and I will let you guess how many dead deer.

If you can't guess scroll down.

ZERO

That's pretty funny if it really is true. Our average hunter here in PA
is much better than that.

Matt