>However, if you insist on being persnickety about terminology -- why
>don't we call this an "execution-*style* slaying"? That's the term
>the NYC press uses whenever local Mafia affiliates stick a gun
>against somebody's head and blow it off.
Or, utter brain destruction.
<http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=12283>
> The "shoot to kill" policy appears to have been discreetly
>introduced into anti-terrorist procedures in 2003, after
>then-Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Stevens sent teams to
>both Israel and Sri Lanka to study how they dealt with suicide
>bombers.
> On Sunday, Lord Stevens wrote in graphic language in the popular
>tabloid the News of the World why he had taken the decision.
> "There is only sure way to stop a suicide bomber determined to
>fulfill his mission: Destroy his brain instantly, utterly. Which
>means shooting him with devastating power in the head, killing him
>immediately. Anywhere else and even though they might be dying, they
>may still be able to force their body to trigger the device," he
>wrote.