Can someone verify this very troubling story?

[Circe]

I saw this topic on another forum, and this was posted:

A company which received $2 million dollars from the DHS has apologized and taken offline “no more hesitation” shooting targets which depicted pregnant women, children, and elderly gun owners in residential settings as “non-traditional threats,” following an online uproar.

They aren't shooting the PEOPLE depicted: these are only paper targets. I can see the point for training. I don't think this is so terrible.

I went to the gun range last week and was delighted at the standard targets they were selling: Zombies!

Two kinds -- plain zombies and zombies who had blood dripping from their chins from munching victims. Good idea, non-toxic targets. I like the whole idea of using zombies as a stand-in for Enemy-of-the-Day, in movies or novels or targets.

I find it very disturbing. I suppose it is something the DHS has to consider, but it is very disturbing. What has the world come to?

Yes, too true. But it's a big country, and it HAS come to this. Or at least, police and peace officers have to be trained to realize it might, if they are very unlucky. I don't want cops killed; so many die on duty. We have such nice police here where I live, and I feel very bad when they are killed in action. They are fighting for us, I feel.

 

[Intense]

This is the CDZ. Civil Discourse is the focus here, regardless of Topic.

 

[PaulS1950]

Yes, there are state and federal agencies using these targets.
They are used to make the officers look for a weapon before looking at gender, age, physique or other distractionary factors. If the gun is present the chance for injury or death of the officer increases dramatically. If an announced officer walks into a room and finds anyone pointing a gun at him, he is supposed to respond with "reasonable" force to maintain his safety and the safety of others in the area. Would a police officer shoot an eight year old who was pointing a gun at him? YES! if he wasn't stupid or absolutely sure the gun was a toy (red muzzle on toys). It isn't practicing shooting innocent by-standers - it is practicing recognizing threats to personal and public safety.

 

[oldernwiser]

Followed one of the linked sources in the article and see where they get their targets:
Law Enforcement Targets, Inc. - Trident Concepts
One example shows a female pointing a gun.

Seems prudent to me to train to react to a threat, regardless of of who

Apparently, they got some PR flak for making these available on their website. They have removed the page that offered the pregnant female and the kids. I'll sniff around and see if I can find a cached page on google...

Looks like this is the real deal though.