Does this look justifiable to you?

[Drudgewire]

Hollowpoints are not magic.

Explain how they pull rabbits out of hats then Mr. Smartypants.

 

[tyr_13]

Explain how they pull rabbits out of hats then Mr. Smartypants. [qimg]http://www.lethalwrestling.com/upload/colbert.gif[/qimg]

They get nitro-express to do it for them.

 

[Bikewer]

The "Black Talons" suffered from bad PR as much as anything. We are issueing the "Golden Saber", which is essentially the same design, but with a fuzzier name.

Jeff Cooper, the well-known combat shooting authority, kept files of incidents in which individuals both in military combat and police incidents were struck by 9mm or .38 caliber weapons and kept fighting.
There were more than a few in which soldiers in combat were hit by FMJ 9mm round and were not aware of the fact until after the firefight was over and friends pointed out that they were bleeding.

Even powerful handguns with modern ammunition have nowhere near the shocking and tissue destructive power of military rifles.
Shooting someone in a limb may well cause death if an artery is cut, this is quite common with leg wounds.
If the femoral artery is cut, it is very difficult to control without immediate surgery; even tourniquets can't handle all that muscle tissue.
However, this takes time, and until the blood loss gets to a critical stage, the individual is quite capable of fighting.

Police may only use deadly force to protect against deadly force. This means that the officer (or someone else) is in immediate danger, and the attacker must be stopped as quickly as possible.

 

[Morrigan]

Finland is lucky to have really low crime, because their police regulations are downright retarded and dangerous.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Arms and legs are harder to hit because they are thinner, and more likely to be moving.

If you shoot someone in the leg, they can still shoot back.

Maybe, maybe not. I've read summaries of medical cases (why I read these for leisure, even I'm not sure) of cases where a person has been critically wounded in a vital organ and not had any clear idea just when or how they got shot and only noticed they were wounded when someone else pointed it out (I think the one I recently read was about a cop who was involved in a firefight) and plenty of other cases where someone has exsanguinated from an amputation or artery hit caused by a handgun. If you get shot in the femoral artery, for example, it could easily be the death of you. There's no reliably "non-lethal" place to get shot, and there's no good target on a person in a police situation (extremely rare sniping aside) but the torso.

This is the same reason I'm not critical of cops who shoot several times an armed belligerent person posing a threat. If the situation the police officer faces justifies firing at a person, then it justifies killing them. Firearms don't have a "shoot to wound" setting.

As you said, I've never fired a gun, and even I know that. I've had a cop point a pepper spray bottle at me once in my life (I was at a party in a rich suburban neighborhood where there was a recent outbreak of teenage gang knife attacks, and I was carrying a prop sword to a party of my friends where we were preparing for theatrical stage combat, so when the neighbors saw us, they thought we were a gang, rather than thespians) and I was extremely cooperative because I knew that a stupid move on my part might lead to a justifiable escalation in force.

 

[Kuko 4000]

I'm now more certain than in the beginning of this thread, that it was murder. Knowing that by firing a weapon towards a person one can kill that person, and still doing it, is murder to me.

Call it justified in the name of self-defence, call it the wrong thing to do...it's all the same to me. It was murder.

Back to the OP. Can it be justified? In the Wild Wild West, seems to me that most definetely. In Finland, not so easily.

1: the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/murder

I'm sure the US law goes further in describing what murder means, but I'm not sure if this is what you really want to say here? Choice of words can fully transform the meaning. On the other hands, maybe it is exactly what you want to say, and that's cool, you and I have all the more interesting topics to discuss with on our free time! I don't share that view, and would like to know more about it. Looking at the quoted part, I can pretty much agree about the last two paragraphs, except for the word murder. Especially in cases like this, I don't think that's empty semantics at all.

 

[Kuko 4000]

Cops should be issued gun-tazers, guns with a disabler implement (tazer). And only allowed these type of handguns. This way they´s have more "options". At least at short range situations like the one of the OP.

According to my source, this is what's happening more and more in Finland, I for one think it's a great direction. Without these, there's not much you can realistically do if you want to stop and disarm a dangerous person in short range, especially if he's holding a firearm, knife or some other deadly weapon.

 

[Kuko 4000]

If this is true, this is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.

What kind of mental defective requires a warning shot? People get killed by warning shots. That bullet has to fall somewhere. American cops are not allowed to shoot warning shots because of the risk to innocent bystanders. That's something that only happens in the movies. In the US, cops are trained that they only fire if the suspect proves a clear and present danger, and must be stopped, not "suppressed".

Leg shots are stupid as well. They're harder to hit, and are just as potentially lethal as a body shot. Doesn't anyone in Finland responsible for making these policies know anything about human anatomy?

The person I talked to has been in the streets of Helsinki for 18 years and another 15 years doing research and investigation work in the office. He quit the streets for self defence of the best kind, prevention. He could be wrong, for all I know, but regarding these issues, he has proven to be someone on the mark way more often than not, so I'm giving him the benefit of a doubt for now.

The Finnish police are naturally carefully instructed and trained on how the warning shot has to be performed to eliminate any immediate danger to anyone. I have to add that I should've clarified this the first time I mentioned it, I just wrote "a warning shot in the air", which is misleading in all kinds of ways. Sorry for that. Thanks for the info btw, I didn't know that the US police are not allowed to shoot warnings. Aiming for the leg, hmmm, I might be motivated to send a mail or something to confirm their official position and reasoning on this.

He watched the vid and commented on the lack of info, but also said that generally the Finnish police would not ever approach the suspect in this way, but understands that in other countries it might be necessary. He also said that, regarding their instructions, the current model works very well in the streets. I was a bit surprised in hearing that, he didn't feel that the regulations limit their work in any dangerous way. I guess I must've been uninformed / exaggerating when I mentioned about incidents popping in the news. Of course he had many stories to tell and examples to give, but in general, stuff like this is VERY rare in Finland.

 

[DC]

The idea of a cop shooting someone in the arm or leg is fanciful. It only happens on TV. I'm pretty certain that cops everywhere are trained to fire at the largest body mass - the torso.

afaik in Switzerland the Police gets trained to shoot in the legs, theyr goal is normaly not killing suspects.

 

[lionking]

afaik in Switzerland the Police gets trained to shoot in the legs, theyr goal is normaly not killing suspects.

Do you have any evidence of that because it flies in the face good policing practice?

As I mentioned earlier, I worked for Victoria Police some years ago, and I simply cannot envision how police can be trained to do that.

 

[DC]

Do you have any evidence of that because it flies in the face good policing practice?

As I mentioned earlier, I worked for Victoria Police some years ago, and I simply cannot envision how police can be trained to do that.

No, i googled alot about it, but cannot find details about their shooting training.

but the next cop i come across i will ask

but i think we cannot compare swiss police with US or Australian cops (not sure about australia cops) im sure in the US they dont train to shoot in the legs. I think beeing a cop in the US is extremly more dangerous than in switzerland. Not that we have no criminals, but its is relatively seldom to have gunfights here.

 

[Dancing David]

Yes, it looks like you have the right story there. In which case the guy was unarmed, but I think it would have been a difficult call for the police to make.

http://video.google.co.uk/videosear...q=shreveport police shooting 2003&hl=en&emb=0

I agree, the issue is that the suspect made a movement that the police took as him firing a weapon or threatening to fire a weapon.

There are times when it does not bode well to threaten police officers.

(Too many guns if you ask me, I come from a gun family and I like shooting too.)

 

[DC]

Do you have any evidence of that because it flies in the face good policing practice?

As I mentioned earlier, I worked for Victoria Police some years ago, and I simply cannot envision how police can be trained to do that.

I just called the Police in Basel and asked. First they wanted to know exactly who i am and why i ask such a strange question lol.
But then i got a Shooting instructor of the Basel Police and he told me alot about the shooting training.

Indeed it was an old "philosophy" to shoot in the legs some decades ago, they mainly trained shooting the leg.
But this changed, cause it turned out that when you shoot the leg and you dont hit a bone, but only flesh, the suspect will not feel it and it will not stop him. but still today they are training to shoot the legs, but mainly they do train shooting on the torso. What they will aim for in a real situation is dependent on the situation, in a case like here in the OP, they go for the torso. there is no rule that says you have to aim for that or that, they try to harm a suspect as lss as possible, when a cop thinks a shot in a leg will be enough he aims for the leg, if he thinks it will not be enough he goes for the torso.

Also he told me, that a few days ago they had a gathering with experts from diffrent countrys, among them someone from Norway, a guy that works with Flemming, Flemming seems to be a big experts on this things from Norway.
In Scandinavian countrys, it is still today usual to mainly train shooting the legs, but this is under critique by their own specialists, for the same reason like the swiss police changed, the leg wounds often dont stop someone. but it is still the scandinavian "philosophy" to go for the legs.

 

[lionking]

Well thanks for this, but I'm not sure that I would ask police how they would shoot at offenders. They would certainly be able to identify where the call came from.

 

[DC]

Well thanks for this, but I'm not sure that I would ask police how they would shoot at offenders. They would certainly be able to identify where the call came from.

you are welcome

i am sure they checked my ID, i gave my real name and birth date
but after explaining why i ask, and metioning this discussion here, they didnt suspect anything

he was very friendly and informative.

 

[mrbaracuda]

What's that? A Dictator Cheney coming back several times after saying he wouldn't return?

 

[HarryKeogh]

Why couldn't the police officer just aim for the bad guy's trigger finger? Or better yet just shoot the gun out of his hand.

 

[Tapio]

This is truly a wonferful forum for discussing any topic! I'm extremely happy that I was introduced to it.

Now, reading through the whole thread I noticed a couple of arguments, assumptions and phrases I'd like to address. Because I'm new to the forums, but hoping to stick around for as long as possible, I don't want to leave false impressions from the start. I'm a father at home with three under three-year-old kids, so my time of writing to this forum is extremely limited, and sometimes results in too simplified and not elaborated enough posts (now I'm sick and my wife takes care of the trio so I have time to write the way I wish I could do every time).

Of course I'm aware it's difficult to understand what's written the way it's meant no matter what, because of the language barrier and everyone's own way of interpreting read words. Despite of this I'll now try to make some sort of summary of my opinion regarding the OP and other topics discussed in this thread.

1) The leg is a very difficult target to hit, it's small and moves fast. It's very difficult to hit someone full in the body. Actually learn how to shoot, under those circumstances, or STFU.
2) A leg shot is every bit as potentially lethal as a body shot; thanks to happy little biological bits known as the "femoral artery", "popliteal artery" "femoral vein", and "great saphenous vein". A round which hits one of these will cause a body to bleed out within minutes; possibly less than a minute. Learn some anatomy or STFU.[snip]

Thanks to many of you, I have understood the flaw in thinking of shooting for a limb when attempting to disable a person. I've studied plenty of anatomy, and have most of my life understood how a shot anywhere in the body can be potentially lethal, so that wasn't the case. My ignorance concerned more the handling of firearms. Thank you all for clarifications on this subject.

Reflecting in this new light upon the Finnish guidelines for the police, they truly seem inadequate and upright dangerous.

murder is a legal term that refers to the unjustified taking of a human life (many societies may differ on what is considered justified but that does not change the meaning of the word) not simply intentionally killing another human being.

By your defenition, the US currently has about 30,000 murderers in Iraq fighting against several thousand (estimates vary) other murderers. Since justification is irrelevant, what side of a war one is on is also irrelevant and anybody who ever put on a soldiers uniform and fought in a war is therefore a murderer (or at the very least a conspiritor to commit murder). Since this assertion is patently ridiculous, this is why justification (or lack thereof) is a critical part of determining whether a homicide is a murder or not.

Similarly by your defenition, intentionally shooting and killing somebody who is brandishing a knife and charging you is murder. Thankfully, most of the civilized world recognizes self defense and defense of others as justifiable homocide, and not murder.

This is where I still disagree to some account. I'm well aware what murder means in English. The equivalent for it in Finnish (murha) has the same meaning. My argument in calling what the police did in the video murder, is based on the belief that it's possible, even probable for a human being, when facing an imminent life-threatening situation because of another human, to want to kill the person who's responsible for the threat. I believe police officers are no excuses in this. On the contrary, when knowing that they have the law on their side in situations like this, it would be rather easy to release some stress through the trigger, so to speak. Or if not stress etc., the feeling of wanting to revenge.

Can any of you tell for certain, that it is not POSSIBLE that even one of the policemen in the video was, even once, pulling the trigger in the frame of mind that counts as murder?

As for the US troops being in Iraq...well, let's just leave that out of this discussion. What we probably can agree on, is that the justification of killing people varies and always depends on the moral of the individual.

Regarding the OP, I think it is murder. Legal or not, that depends on the country and the court.
Fortunately, that's only your opinion. The rest of us deal in provable fact.

I'm not an expert on shooting anyone, but I would think shooting someone 15 times in the back is a bit exaggerated, if the intetion is to stop the person from being a threat. This, among a couple of other things, constitutes to the base of my belief that the police were in fact intending to kill the guy. Alas, no one of us can ever know this for sure. The true intentions of these police officers will be only their's to know.

The facts are (if this video truly shows the case Dancing David dug up) that the guy actually wasn't a threat, and that the police reaction was in no way appropriately measured. THIS is where I still think some parts of the Finnish guideline for police in the use of firearms are more developed (at least in moral terms) than in the US. Who knows, if the police had waited for just ten seconds more, the guy would've surrendered or thrown away his phone or, or, or...at least in Finland, this kind of pondering after the damage is done, is reduced to minimum. For if a Finnish police officer kills a suspect by shooting him, it most certainly will be the last, and very last option.

In my oppinion the low crime rate (in which firearms are used) in Finland, or the low rate of police being shot at, or wounded/killed by shooting has a lot to do with the overall attitude towards using firearms, which is quite negative.

Thank you for clearing up your extreme views. We will know in the future that on this subject you are extremely biased towards the uber-pacifist ideology and address you accordingly. We will also keep in mind your apparent bias towards the US.

How are my views so extreme to you? I feel in no way to be uber-pacifistic, least of all biased toward it. From whatever side I try to view my position on this subject, I feel it's based on clear thinking. Of course there's always room for self-developement, and that's why we're going on, right?

I support that which is necessary in order for the safety and well-being of everyone concerned. If an individual poses a threat for the rest, I think we should apply the most efficent and non-injuring means possible by which that threat can be eliminated. I understand that in some cases the only option is killing the person(s) posing the threat. This, however, should be the most extremely rare case. From what I can understand regarding the OP, this incident wouldnt've necessarily had to end in the guy dying.

As for my "bias toward the US", I think you're going too far. Let me clarify. What I meant by telling I was happy to be living on this side of the ocean, was that I'm glad that in Finland the police aren't allowed to shoot people (and call it justified) as easily as it seems to be in the US. I have a history of extreme activism of all sorts, and although I've never physically threatened the police, I've been in several situations in which I have a good hunch, that would've they taken place in the US, I'd been shot at. So living in Finland has made sure that I've lived through some fanatic, wreckless and irresponsibly wild teenage years, even though I've been in really tough situations with the police.

Anyway, I think it's too much you calling my (whole) attitude towards the US anything based on these few words I've written to this thread.

 

[Drudgewire]

In my oppinion the low crime rate (in which firearms are used) in Finland, or the low rate of police being shot at, or wounded/killed by shooting has a lot to do with the overall attitude towards using firearms, which is quite negative.

And yet:

The widely cited Small Arms Survey 2007 by Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva Switzerland claims there are some 3 million firearms in Finland, or 56 per 100 civilians.
-Source

Granted, the US has like 90 firearms per hundred civilians but that's still a pretty high number of gun owners to suggest "a quite negative attitude" towards them. And percentagewise the number of gun owners per capita is probably a lot closer to ours considering how many Americans have multiple firearms (got six myself).

Finland and Switzerland are two of the countries us gun lovers point to as proof that guns themselves AREN'T as relative to gun crime as some would like to suggest.

 

[Tapio]

Finland and Switzerland are two of the countries us gun lovers point to as proof that guns themselves AREN'T as relative to gun crime as some would like to suggest.

As I said: The attitude towards USING firearms is negative. And THAT attitude is the one I think that counts.