“......Since when does firing into the dirt do that? But cops do it all the time,........”
Firing warning shots and shots into the ground is almost universally against the law. It just depends on if the police officer wants to turn it over to the DA and if the DA wants to go after you. Part of that decision is what you say to the police officer.
Police Officers are absolutely NOT trained to fire warning shots. They are trained to fire only when deadly force is required and to not stop shooting until it is obvious that deadly force is no longer needed. Which is why in so many situations you have a police officer (based on training) putting a dozen rounds or more into a criminal and the uninformed public going nuts about police brutality and executions.
The laws governing the use of firearms have very little to do with common sense or what people have seen in TV or movies.
Correct. And it shouldn't be...
Correct, as I said.
Yet most "reasonable" men would patently disagree with such a law, because it's too dogmatic. The law should be more about whether anyone was put in unreasonable danger than some blanket ban on certain actions with a firearm or weapon.
There are certainly cases where firing a warning shot—especially into the ground—is safe enough. It's certainly safer than what cops sometimes do, as evidenced by that unlucky person (those unlucky people?) in California who just happened to be driving the wrong color truck, and who got shot to Hell because the police didn't bother to identify who they were shooting at!
"Shoot first and ask questions later", I guess—at least for the police...