> Ok, let's give the benefit of the doubt to the cops (I
> dont want to do that but let's do it for the sake of
> pursuing another line of argument) and say that the
> cop had a right to protect himself and use his gun.
> Why
> did he have to shoot her in the chest? Why not shoot
> her in the arm or some other non-lethal area of the
> body in order to disable her?
Sure I even admit to being a cranky pacifist fan of the second amendment and the right to self-defense, but I have never fired a gun in my life and do not want to.
1. Do we get to then believe cops when they say it's hard enough hitting a lethal shot? Hitting a limb like a leg is even harder.
2. As long as we're giving them the right to self-defense, do we also concede the cop fear that they may not get a second shot so that's why they shoot to kill?
My position is that the gun is the wrong tool here. That said even much bigger fans of firearms than I am could be trained to recognize common kitchen implements or to de-escalate conflictive situations to reduce the risk of tragedy. Of course no one is going to think to try until there is enough public outrage, enough lawsuits, enough nerds writing studies!
It is disputed by>
> witneses, but the cop says that he warned the woman a
> few times before shooting. Wouldn't that give him
> time enough to think about a non-lethal way of
> subduing her?
HELLO! The woman was screaming in Vietnamese. Chances are she did NOT understand the cop's warnings!
(By the way our boys are having the same problem in Iraq. Those silly Arabic or other-speaking I-rak-ees just refuse to understand when clueless heavily armed homeboys insist on screaming at them in English.)
DoreneC -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20031104/3d95a504/attachment.htm>