A nice little article as to why aiming to injure a suspect holding a firearm is just as dangerous as shoot to kill, or that is how I read it anyway:
This is where Science does help matters. They know the physical capabilities of the human body, the brain capacity of a cop, and we must realise that we do not live in Hollywood where a suspect gets shot in the leg and he drops his gun because it simply does not work like that in real-life. A policeman, just like the military and anyone who has a gun work in survival mode. If they feel threatened by someone else who is not allowed to own a gun, then they will go into survival mode. In the UK, it is different compared to the United States, and we do not have a shoot to kill policy.
Quote:"Hands and arms can be the fastest-moving body parts. For example, an average suspect can move his hand and forearm across his body to a 90-degree angle in 12/100 of a second. He can move his hand from his hip to shoulder height in 18/100 of a second.
"The average officer pulling the trigger as fast as he can on a Glock, one of the fastest- cycling semi-autos, requires 1/4 second to discharge each round.
"There is no way an officer can react, track, shoot and reliably hit a threatening suspect's forearm or a weapon in a suspect's hand in the time spans involved.
"Even if the suspect held his weapon arm steady for half a second or more, an accurate hit would be highly unlikely, and in police shootings the suspect and his weapon are seldom stationary. Plus, the officer himself may be moving as he shoots.
"The upper arms move more slowly than the lower arms and hands. But shooting at the upper arms, there's a greater chance you're going to hit the suspect's brachial artery or center mass, areas with a high probability of fatality. So where does shooting only to wound come in when even areas considered by some to 'safe' from fatality risk could in fact carry the same level of risk as targeting center mass?
"Legs tend initially to move slower than arms and to maintain more static positions. However, areas of the lower trunk and upper thigh are rich with vascularity. A suspect who's hit there can bleed out in seconds if one of the major arteries is severed, so again shooting just to wound may not result in just wounding.
"On the other hand, if an officer manages to take a suspect's legs out non-fatally, that still leaves the offender's hands free to shoot. His ability to threaten lives hasn't necessarily been stopped."
This is where Science does help matters. They know the physical capabilities of the human body, the brain capacity of a cop, and we must realise that we do not live in Hollywood where a suspect gets shot in the leg and he drops his gun because it simply does not work like that in real-life. A policeman, just like the military and anyone who has a gun work in survival mode. If they feel threatened by someone else who is not allowed to own a gun, then they will go into survival mode. In the UK, it is different compared to the United States, and we do not have a shoot to kill policy.
