Earlier this week, a criminal escaping in a stolen car at 140mph in a busy city street rammed into another car killing two people literally on my doorsteps. That would have been avoided, had the police adopted the shoot to kill policy in that case.
Being soft on criminals is another area where I and the US liberal left part company.
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I cannot help but consider the practical implications, tough guy accusations of being "soft on criminals" notwithstanding.
At what point should the police have shot this carjacker? At the moment he leaped behind the wheel, put foot to accelerator showing intent to flee? Or perhaps while he was rocketing down the road at plus 100mph?
Is it possible that firing on him before he drove away would have been a summary execution and while he was dangerously speeding not so good an idea because -- perhaps -- killing a man behind the wheel of a very fast moving car might create new, uncontrollable problems courtesy of the laws of physics?
For a guy who goes on and on about the misguided, pathological masculinity of American males (exhibit A: SUVs, exhibit B: Hip Hop, exhibit C: I'm grumpy consarnit!) you sure do sound -- more and more often -- like a keyboard relayed version of a Sergio Leone western's vision of machismo.
That's quite a baroque maze you've got going on over there.
.d.
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