In Praise of Accurate Shooting
Details are starting to come out about the shooting at the Wal-Mart in Vancouver where a police officer shot and killed a transient after the transient pointed a realistic-looking toy gun at the officer. While I’m sure numerous folks will debate numerous aspects of this situation, I’d like to point out and praise one thing: the officer fired one shot.
This isn’t a case of a barrage of gunfire leaving bullets everywhere and potentially hitting unintended targets. While it’s never a good outcome when someone is killed, it appears the officer used responsible marksmanship and acted in a responsible fashion to neutralize the threat without being excessive.
Uh…I think you mean “acted in a responsible fashion to neutralize the PERCEIVED threat without being excessive”.
Don’t you?
While violence sucks, and guns certainly do elevate mortality, in this case, I have to side with the officer.
Duh! If someone points what you think is a gun at you, and your job is to protect the community, what are you going to do, put down your gun and walk away? WTF is an idiot doing pointing a gun at an officer? Darwinism at its finest…
Jeez, I hope some of the Tre-loving lefties don’t ever carry a sidearm!
yeah, but it was one shot to the HEAD
maybe he could’ve aimed at an arm or something less likely to cause DEATH?
just sayin’
While in theory, shooting the guy in the hand sounds great, I suspect in the few seconds that the officer had to make his decision to fire, he went for a torso or head shot to meet his goal of neutralizing the threat.
The suspect made the choice to give up his life when he pointed a fake weapon at the officer.
Officers are trained to shoot at ‘center of mass’, precisely because they are less likely to miss that way. The Officer was doing exactly what he was trained to do.
Also, I’m not dogging on the officer for the shooting. If someone points a realistic gun at a policeman, they are pretty much going to get shot. But let’s also not overstate the situation and suggest he was in deadly danger. It was a *toy* gun. There was no actual threat, only the perception of one.