i had a P266, too. AWESOME pistol. i sold it for a profit, though, and bought a Springfield 1911 (stainless loaded model).

i wanted the .45's extra power, and i like the SA trigger, and 1911s just look sweet.

8/8/2005 1:08:55 AM

A new policy being enforced a lot more recently is that LEO's are not supposed to draw a weapon unless they are shooting to kill. Federal agencies use this policy now, and many polce departments are starting to use it. So technically, when a police officer or fed is shooting at someone, he is shooting to kill, thus center mass or head shots are used. I'm not positive which PD's use this policy yet, but i know the FBI uses this policy. Whether this is good or bad, I do not know as the evidence from places that use it is not overwhelming in either direction. Just thought I'd add that into the argument.

8/8/2005 1:10:15 AM

Quote :

"Speaking of swords, do you have to have a permit for those to carry them for self-defense? where do you apply for those permits if so..."

CCW permits are only for the carry of HANDGUNS

nothing else

8/8/2005 1:10:46 AM

^^i don't see how it's a good idea to regulate that kind of thing.

seems to me that the smart way is to teach officers why they should generally be shooting center of mass, but leave it to their discretion if some weird situation arises where they feel the need to do something different (which, i'm sure, is what they'll do regardless of what some stupid policy says).

^haha, good luck concealing a sword, anyway.

i'm no expert on this, but i don't see any reason you couldn't just walk around with a sword rigged.

for that matter, i brought my sword to my old roommate's wedding. i even drew it!



[Edited on August 8, 2005 at 1:15 AM. Reason : i'm on the right, nearest the camera]

8/8/2005 1:12:06 AM

^^^I havn't heard about this new policy, but it sounds pretty unbelievable. So a police officer isn't allowed to draw his gun to approach a vehicle when he knows an unpredictable violent offender is sitting in the seat? I don't think that's likely.

[Edited on August 8, 2005 at 1:13 AM. Reason : ^]

8/8/2005 1:13:34 AM

As someone who wants to work as LEO, i agree that i honestly do not think it is the best idea to enforce that. It's bad bc it takes away deiscretion form the officer. But it's also good that it takes discretion away from the officer. It all depends on the officer and situation. Granted, most situations are not really like the TV/movie cop standoff sitation type stuff, but in the rare case it does, i guarantee the officer would not just sit there with his gun holdstered. I understand the argument that it shoudl reduce the unnecessary police homicides, but there are not really that many of those. They just get all the national medias attention.

8/8/2005 1:17:21 AM

duke - yeah, I'm not wildly pro-gun or anything (though I am wildly pro-sword, spear, axe, etc), but I can tell that most of the standard anti-gun arguments are blatantly wrong... and I've never used a firearm (I held an unloaded .357 pistol once).

wolfpacker75 - what does that mean, exactly? folks rarely shoot for limbs anyways... does shoot to kill mean they'll make sure the target's dead once he goes down (i.e. five bullets to the brain)? or just do what cops always do?

8/8/2005 1:18:36 AM

The fact of the matter is, shooting with the sole intention of killing is murder. Shooting to stop the threat to you is legal, as long as all 4 requirements of lethal force are met:

1) deadly force is necessary to prevent your death or great bodily injury
2) a "reasonable person" as defined by the law would have acted the way you did
3) you aren't the instigator of the conflict
4) you didn't use excessive force

If the person dies as a result of your shot, does not matter. If the above four requirements are met, you're in the clear.

8/8/2005 1:19:45 AM

I had a criminal justice teacher in high school who said he never drew his gun if he wasn't ready to use it and he never used his gun if he wasn't ready to kill somebody.

But then again I'm not sure what caliber (ha) of cop ends up teaching vocational courses in a public high school.

8/8/2005 1:20:16 AM

I think they MIGHT be allowed to rawa weopan as a precaution, but cannot fire it unless they are shooting to kill...its late and its been awhile since i was talking with the former head of the FBI about it. I gotta call him this week or next sometime, so I can check with him about the policy again, if nothing else then to just satisfy my own curiosity

8/8/2005 1:21:24 AM

Quote :

" I understand the argument that it shoudl reduce the unnecessary police homicides, but there are not really that many of those. They just get all the national medias attention."

Perhaps, but some are still shockingly stupid... such as the Hayes case, though luckily no one died in that one...

8/8/2005 1:21:54 AM

^^^if you pull a gun without being ready to kill someone, you're setting yourself up to have it taken and used against you. handling a gun is serious fucking business. i wouldn't rely on one unless i was confident in my abilities with it, and certain of my resolve to be able to use it.

[Edited on August 8, 2005 at 1:23 AM. Reason : ^^^]

8/8/2005 1:22:35 AM

goldenviper, well, if the officer is trained correctly, the person should be dead after he shoots him once or twice. It doesnt mean unload an entire clip on him or kill him after he his down, but the intial intention if firing the first or second round would be to kill him. no shooting to just wound (i.e. foot or arm)

[Edited on August 8, 2005 at 1:25 AM. Reason : a]

8/8/2005 1:23:14 AM

Quote :

"if you pull a gun without being ready to kill someone, you're setting yourself up to have it taken and used against you. handling a gun is serious fucking business. i wouldn't rely on one unless i was confident in my abilities with it, and certain of my resolve to be able to use it"

Damn straight.

8/8/2005 1:26:50 AM

Quote :

"basically, i'm not arguing that we shouldn't be working to better our schools and certain programs...i'm just saying that it's not the silver bullet."

I've always appreciated theduke cause he seems to get it, but he doesn't trip and fall out of the box like me. Do you think there is a silver bullet or bullets? Or do you think our embarassing crime rates are just the American way?

8/8/2005 1:27:01 AM

dude, i want to turn on the news one day and see GoldenViper on there being interviewed after stopping some heinous crime by splitting someone's head in half with that giant axe thing in his photogallery.

^i wish i knew. shit, i wish SOMEBODY knew.

i mean, i love guns. i'll also say right now that it would be great if they'd never been invented. that's not what we have to deal with, though.

i don't think there's a silver bullet or bullets. I think, to some degree, that our embarrassing crime rates ARE the American Way. I think it's implicitly part of our culture, but more importantly, i think that there are other factors that are part of our culture and society that will make it hard to ever really tame the violence problem...and some of those things are actually GOOD things in many ways.

for example, America has always been a nation of, for lack of a better, less overused term, "rugged individualists." i think that's a good thing. i think that there's a trade-off in violence, though.

another example is that we're such a heterogenous society. the so-called "melting pot"...again, a good thing...but again, there's a price to be paid, and that's clashing between the zillions of different types of people we have here.


[Edited on August 8, 2005 at 1:38 AM. Reason : asdf]

8/8/2005 1:27:10 AM

Our "embarrassing crime rates" have been falling steadily since 1990 and continue to fall.

edit: one reason for this drop is abortion laws, but we'll save that for another thread

[Edited on August 8, 2005 at 1:29 AM. Reason : .]

[Edited on August 8, 2005 at 1:30 AM. Reason : sp]

[Edited on August 8, 2005 at 1:32 AM. Reason : sp]

8/8/2005 1:28:15 AM

Quote :

"goldenviper, well, if the officer is trained correctly, the person should be dead after he shoots him once or twice. "

Um... no. Not in the real world, unless the person in question is denied medical care. Crooks often give up after a round or two to chest and survive. Anyone who has watched the news has seen this...

Folks shot 120+ rounds at Hayes and hit him four times. He was fine after a hospital visit... that is an extreme case though...

Quote :

"dude, i want to turn on the news one day and see GoldenViper on there being interviewed after stopping some heinous crime by splitting someone's head in half with that giant axe thing in his photogallery."

It's a bill, evolved from a simple farm tool. Along with war, they were supposedly used for home defense in medieval England (a bill behind the door or some such). That age's equivalent of the 12 gauge, perhaps...

[Edited on August 8, 2005 at 1:34 AM. Reason : bill]

8/8/2005 1:28:31 AM

i was meaning feds...thats is how i was told they are trained, and that comes from head of Raleigh FBI...

8/8/2005 1:30:20 AM

well I guess a double tap to the head would give damn good odds of a kill

past that, though, medical care is amazing these days...

8/8/2005 1:36:46 AM

Even though it would be nice if all criminals who received a justifiable double tap to the chest didn't make it to the hospital, that just isn't the case.

And no, cops dont shoot to kill either, they are held to the same standards that civilians are when making life and death situations.

8/8/2005 1:40:05 AM

Quote :

"Even though it would be nice if all criminals who received a justifiable double tap to the chest didn't make it to the hospital"

I don't agree, but I guess that's 'coz I'm the resident *leftist* weapons nut...

Quote :

"And no, cops dont shoot to kill either, they are held to the same standards that civilians are when making life and death situations."

yep yep

that's why I'm trying to figure out exactly how this shoot to kill is different

if we go by the English standard, it does seem to be "make damn sure they're dead"

I'm not too keen on that.

8/8/2005 1:44:04 AM

Well, I was being a little facetious maybe, but here is how I think about it. If the cop's force used on the criminal was warranted, that means that the criminal was actually trying to take the cop's life, either by pointing a gun at him, shooting at him, trying to stab him, whatever. In that case, I have no sympathy for the bad guys that don't make it to the hospital, and the more that don't make it then the more that won't do it again. BTW, I am a gun nut, but very far from a right-winger.

As far as the incident in question, I havnt really read much about it so let me get back on that.

8/8/2005 1:51:16 AM

Quote :

"he seems to get it, but he doesn't trip and fall out of the box like me. "

i think that it's because you are pretty well informed, which is half the battle, but i think you think more with your heart than with your brain.

when i say "think with your heart", i'm not talking about compassion. i'm talking about making decisions based on feelings and emotion, rather than being analytical...the difference in how someone with background in, say, liberal arts makes decisions as opposed to a person with a background in say, mechanical engineering. not to mention gender differences (which raises the question of how much this difference in thought process accounts for the overwhelming male bias in the world of CEOs, politics, military leadership, etc...although military leadership isn't a good example, due to hard restrictions against women in certain jobs). obviously there's WAY more to it than that--i just wonder HOW MUCH it accounts for.

all of that's still less frustrating than a pure ideologue, though. a perfect example of that is MathFreak. i've seen him post something on here to the effect of "i don't really like my own stance on this issue, but this is my decision based on my ideology."

[Edited on August 8, 2005 at 1:57 AM. Reason : asdf]

[Edited on August 8, 2005 at 2:08 AM. Reason : sdfasdf]

8/8/2005 1:52:57 AM

when jack bauer wants people to talk, he shoots them in the leg and the presses on the bullet

8/8/2005 1:57:22 AM

After reading about the London police shooting, it looks to me like it was an unjustifiable shooting. The man clearly didn't have a weapon, nor did he appear to be a threat to the lives of the officers. I dont know exactly what kind of policy Britain has on this, (they obviously don't have the same types of policies that we do, because of Draconian laws regarding firearm ownership) but the independent investigation will hopefully clear it up. Don't think that this was a typical police shooting, because it was far from that.

8/8/2005 2:04:42 AM

it makes no sense to have shot him -- bc if hes not far enough that a suicide bomb wouldnt reach you, you probably have means to apprehend him

8/8/2005 2:10:28 AM

Quote :

"Don't think that this was a typical police shooting, because it was far from that."

That's true. And it wasn't exactly a police action anyway - it was part of the "war on terror." Our cops almost never shoot folks because they're running away. But we don't have suicide bombers over here either...

8/8/2005 2:16:05 AM

yet.

that's gonna be some crazy shit whenever it starts happening. i can't believe it hasn't already.

8/8/2005 2:17:12 AM

^thats becuase it wont

muslims in the US make good money, and have good jobs

muslims in the UK were treated like shit

if you dont treat muslims well -- then they tend to suicide bomb your commuters...so...theres that.

[Edited on August 8, 2005 at 2:20 AM. Reason : -]

8/8/2005 2:20:16 AM

I can't believe nobody has offered to shoot to thrill

8/8/2005 2:20:38 AM

yep

just remember not to run from the cops in plain clothes

until the terrorists start pretending to uncover police, of course...

8/8/2005 2:21:08 AM

^^^i'm talking more along the lines of people coming here for the purpose of blowing themselves up in a crowd.

[Edited on August 8, 2005 at 2:22 AM. Reason : ^^TOO MANY WOMEN, AND TOO MANY PILLS]

8/8/2005 2:22:24 AM

well...it takes $$$ to get here. and planning.

8/8/2005 2:23:24 AM

not all that much of either. i mean, yeah, there are some obstacles, but i still can't believe that it hasn't happened A SINGLE TIME. it blows my mind.

8/8/2005 2:25:14 AM

there arent really that many terrorists out there. iraq is full of thugs, not international terrorists with the goal of dismantling the US

plus i think they got the message when they took 2 buildings of ours and we took 2 countries

[Edited on August 8, 2005 at 2:27 AM. Reason : -]

8/8/2005 2:27:09 AM

we'll see

Fox news still tells me they'll nuke us sooner or later

8/8/2005 2:27:51 AM

heres a little secret that they dont want you to know -- dirty bombs dont work. they wouldnt kill anyone.

8/8/2005 2:31:32 AM

They would kill you if you were in the vicinity of the explosion and didn't bathe for several weeks.

8/8/2005 2:32:32 AM

exactly

8/8/2005 2:33:58 AM

Remember that guy who got arrested for nothing?

And then it was a plot to unleash a deadly dirty bomb?

And then it wasn't that but they wouldn't say what it was?

And then a week later it was a deadly deadly dirty bomb?


Yeah, that fucker's gonna die in prison.

8/8/2005 2:35:57 AM

basicaly terrorists are less then human

8/8/2005 2:36:53 AM

You misspelled foreigners.

8/8/2005 2:39:54 AM

Quote :

"goldenviper, well, if the officer is trained correctly, the person should be dead after he shoots him once or twice. It doesnt mean unload an entire clip on him or kill him after he his down, but the intial intention if firing the first or second round would be to kill him."

With the handguns most police carry, rarely will they instantly kill in 1-2 shots.

When I first started working at a level 1 trauma center I was amazed at the shit people could live through.

8/8/2005 3:46:53 AM

with the marksmanship most police have, they'll rarely hit at all within the first 1-2 clips



okay, it's not that bad

and yeah, it is amazing what people survive

the human body is made to keep on truckin'

8/8/2005 3:50:27 AM

Quote :

"I had a criminal justice teacher in high school who said he never drew his gun if he wasn't ready to use it and he never used his gun if he wasn't ready to kill somebody."

I feel the same way about any weapon. Weapons aren't for communicating threats. So many people make out like you can flash a gun like in the movies and people will respect you...

I always carry a knife with me, everywhere. I use it daily for utility purposes, but it is there and easily accesible if the need arises to use it in defense of myself. If that situation ever happens, the knife will have blood on it shortly after it's drawn. I am not going to pull a knife on someone to threaten them. Same with a gun. If I pull a gun on someone, my finger is pulling the trigger.

Barring some crazy unusal circumstance, a lethal weapon should be used in a lethal fashion. If the situation is bad enough to warrant you drawing a weapon, then it's bad enough to use it. If it isn't that bad, leave the weapon holstered.

8/8/2005 10:13:53 AM

^ thats the point i was trying to say last nite, but you put it much better than I did...thats the logic behind the policy I was talking about

8/8/2005 11:39:24 AM

^^That is well said, however the needs for drawing a weapon is very different for police than it is for civilians. There are many situations when the police may need to draw their weapons without firing. For example, police entering a house for a search, approaching a vehicle with a violent offender in it, being called to a scene where the person is known to be armed. So the "policy" that police can't draw their weapons until they are ready to shoot just doesn't make sense. That rule should absolutely be followed by civilians, though.

8/8/2005 11:45:56 AM

Quote :

"i'm no expert on this, but i don't see any reason you couldn't just walk around with a sword rigged. "

"Carry to the terror of the people" or something like that. Basically, you're scaring people, so you can't carry it.

Quote :

"for that matter, i brought my sword to my old roommate's wedding. i even drew it! "

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the edges of the blades supposed to be facing up?

8/8/2005 11:49:46 AM

An earlier post was right on the money. Never draw your gun on someone unless you intend to shoot to kill them.

Drawing it in an attempt to use it as a threat to try to diffuse a situation is certainly not a good idea legally. If you draw it and aim at their limbs, the same legal advice almost certainly applies as well.

Im honestly not at all surprised every kid hasn't heard this from their parents growing up.

8/8/2005 11:52:50 AM