>>I know nothing about firearms. But what is the empirical basis for your claim? I thought law enforcement officers, in particular, were trained to shoot to disable, rather than kill, their targets. Presumably the risk of killing is always present, and this risk should not inhibit expeditious use of the firearm when warranted. But all other things being equal, is a dead assailant truly better than an effectively disabled one? Not trying to be combative: I seriously want to understand how one would arrive at this conclusion.<<
Knowledge of firearms and POST training guides. I don’t know where you get YOUR info, but Law Enforcement are taught to acquire and destroy their target. The head and chest are the largest areas of the human body and that is where to aim with the highest chance of destruction.
>>All of which is to say, IF one can be effectively trained to reliably disable a threat, I can understand the woman’s preferring a weapon that accomplishes that task over a weapon that dispenses with this possibility entirely in favor of tipping the odds of an encounter becoming lethal.<<
Only on TV. When you decide to use a weapon, it is for keeps. Attempting to “wing” someone just narrows the target options and probably results in a death all right — YOURS.
>>As a possibly less emotionally charged example, some people may well prefer a “catch and release” approach to dealing with a beaver that is creating havoc in a residential neighborhood over the alternative of killing the critter etc. So long as the trapped beaver can be released into an area sufficiently wild and remote to preclude its return to the neighborhood in question, it’s not obvious why killing it is the preferred approach.<<
Repeating your argument doesn’t give it credence. A weapon is designed to kill what it is pointed at. If you want non-lethal interdiction, get a taser.
cops shoot to stop. theyre not ingrained with the intent to kill...just to stop the threat.
“Law Enforcement are taught to acquire and destroy their target. The head and chest are the largest areas of the human body and that is where to aim with the highest chance of destruction.”
There seems to be conflicting info on this:
“we are not trained to kill, we are trained to stop the threat, many suspects survive, if we were trained to kill, we would keep shooting til they are dead.”
But the site above does state repeatedly that LE aims for torso, not to “wing” and that by so doing, they are increasing the odds of killing. So I understand better why this woman needs to be prepared to kill if she’s going to use a firearm in the first place. Thanks.