If this was you or I as a civilian using a firearm for self defense, and had 100% control of the situation, and fired just because he reached...we’d be locked away.
Regarding this point above, I would say it depends on the situation. If the guy had just broken into my property, reasonable self defense dictates the homeowner could take him out without a word said. It wouldn't matter if he reached or not.
The police are civilians too, but they have a duty to respond to the idiot pointing the firearm out the window. You just can't make a sudden movement that looks like you could be in the process of producing a weapon while in front of a cop. They can't wait to see a gun before reacting because by then its too late. I'd feel the same way if you're an intruder in my home.
Tell your kids what my father told me. If a LEO stops you, be respectful, make no sudden movements, keep you hands in plain sight and if you need to retrieve something (like a license from a glove compartment), ask first if it's okay. Simple things any reasonable person can do and you'll be fine.
Strawman McGee, that’s not what I’m saying, I’ve made that very clear. If our soldiers in an actual war zone, in one of the most dangerous countries on the planet, can excercise better judgment than these guys can...why the hell are we holding our law enforcement to lower standards than not only the our troops, but the average LAW ABIDING CITIZEN?
WHY IS IT “IMPOSSIBLE” TO NOT MEET HALFWAY BETWEEN WHAT WE ASKED OUR SOLDIERS TO DO IN A GODDAMN WARZONE, AND WHAT WE ALLOW OUR LAW ENFORCEMENT TO GET AWAY WITH CURRENTLY...WHY ARE WE OK WITH GIVING BETTER TREATMENT TO ENEMY COMBATANTS THAN OUR OWN CITIZENS?
FYI, our military have killed innocent civilians who were not a threat.....it was/is a war zone
in Somalia, they were getting fired on from many angles/all over the city.....the soldiers just fired up some areas and civilians were there
in WW2 if they got fired on from a town, they would blast a lot of the buildings--which had innocent civilians in them
Roughly one thousand Somalis were killed by American forces over the twenty hours
I couldn't get an accurate read on how many of those Somalis were civilians, so I called my colleague, Mark Bowden, who
wrote the book. He said that
eighty percent of the Somali deaths were of
civilian.
800 civilians killed by American military in twenty hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
have you ever read anything on war??!!?? I was in for 8 years and have been reading about war/etc for over 30 years
Does "Black Hawk Down" Portray an American War Crime?
WTF are you talking about military vs police for?? as you can see in the above facts, numbers and quotes--your analogy is beyond ridiculous
WW2 was what we call total war, started by the nazis, when they would do what was called terror bombing, when they didn’t really go after military targets, but civilians as well. Total war was more than just beating the other military, it was about breaking the will of an entire nation, through terror bombing and bombardments. The allies practiced it as well, since their hand was partially forced in the matter. We firebombed German and japanese cities. Even during military strikes, against military targets the brits lost patience (understandable since the nazis were slinging rockets at London from across the pond), and would have the bombers fly high and at night to protect them. While it helped protect them, it greatly lowered the accuracy of their bombs (there were no smart bombs back then), and would kill civilians too. The US on the other hand would fly low during the day, to try to preserve casualties and make sure they took out German factories. These acts, like total war, and terror bombing are now consider war crimes, and are about the furthest thing away from what our military practices today.
And do you honestly think in Somalia that our military (the US military) were that bad of shots that they actually killed 800 civilians, va only 200 Somali militants? YOUR CRAZY IF YOU ACTUALLY BELIEVE THAT. This was Somalia, you see someone die, you go and loot their body, wether you’re a regular Somali joe, or Somali militant...and in Somalia, guns are pretty essential to life, making them very valuable...so if the standard is, these Somali bodies don’t have guns on them, therefore they are civilians, is prettt damn silly. On top of that, YOUR ARTICLE IS QUESTIONING WHETHER IR NOT THIS WAS A WAR CRIME...not helping your point. It is also not how we currently have fought the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
How Our Overly Restrictive Rules of Engagement Keep Us from Winning Wars
We’ve asked our military personnel in a war zone to do the impossible...but yet we think it’s ok for police to use lethal force on assumptions? We give better treatment to enemy combatants than we do our own citizens? There’s something wrong here