That is a question I sometimes ponder myself. I have a hard time thinking someone should be shot and killed if they are unarmed. If a person has been convicted of a felony and it’s the type of felony where you know this guy will kill as many as he can get away with, that would do it for me.
I don’t think of myself as an executioner. I do consider myself a defender of the public.
I am not a law enforcement officer. I would still have to consider what their guidelines would be, but if say Charlie Manson or some such individual was trying to effect an escape and be lost in the body of the populace, I wouldn’t have a problem doing him in.
In that case, I would do so and accept whatever penalty I got, knowing I saved more lives than I took.
The reality is that in today’s world ANY unarmed person shot for ANY reason is going to be a very bad thing for cop, force and the community.
The world and the rules have changed, those who can’t deal with it should get behind a desk. I sympathize with the men and women who have to make a decision such as that, but this is 2016, and EVERY police shooting is going to be second guessed by any and every citizen who wants to do so, and if the person is found to not have a genuine weapon (and no one not on FR gives a rat’s patootie how much a BB gun or airsoft pistol looks like a real gun) their career is effectively over. An officer who can’t handle that should investigate other careers; I know *I* couldn’t do their job.