If it looks like a gun...

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Guyon

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it is a gun in the eyes of the law:
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/10/28/lashooting.01/index.html

Los Angeles officer kills man wielding fake gun at Halloween party

October 28, 2000
Web posted at: 10:36 p.m. EDT (0236 GMT)

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- A Los Angeles police officer shot and killed a Halloween partygoer early Saturday after the man pointed what appeared to be a gun at the officer, authorities said.

The gun turned out to a replica semiautomatic pistol.

Authorities identified the dead man as 39-year-old Anthony Dwain Lee of Van Nuys, California. Lee was an actor whose roles included the part of Fred in the movie "Liar, Liar," which starred Jim Carrey. According to Sgt. John Pasquariello, at about 4 a.m. Officer Tarriel Hopper and another officer from the West Los Angeles sector responded to a call of a loud party in the Los Angeles hills. Pasquariello said the officers were directed towardthe back of the house to talk to the owner or person responsible for the party.

As the officers walked along a walkway to the back, Hopper, a three-year department veteran, saw three persons inside a small room. One man saw the officers and produced "what appeared to be a handgun and pointed it directly at Officer Hopper," Pasquariello said in a police news release.

Hopper fired several rounds, wounding Lee. Medics pronounced the man dead at the scene.
 
What amazes me is the mindset (or lack thereof) of these happy dwellers in their Nerf World.

"Oh, look! A shadowy, unidentified figure! I believe I'll turn and menace it with my fake gun."

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a Nerf World; in our world, the real world, sometimes the shadowy figures have real guns. If I was in that officer's shoes, thinking I'd stumbled across something shady, and someone turned and pointed a realistic fake gun at me, I'd have done the exact same thing. And it would haunt me for the rest of my days, as it will this officer, I'm sure.

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"..but never ever Fear. Fear is for the enemy. Fear and Bullets."
10mm: It's not the size of the Dawg in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog!
 
I just heard about this on the local news. Apparently the police were checking out complaints from the neighbors of excessive noise at the party. Why were they going around the back of the house? It might be difficult to fault an officer who genuinely thought someone was pointing a gun at him for shooting first.

What irritated me about the report was the LA spokesperson said the officer drew and fired his service pistol when he thought he saw someone pointing a semi automatic hand gun at him. How come the LE guns are always service pistols, but the other guys gun is always a semi automatic? Just another subtle way for the media to get in their anti gun slant.
 
(Moved this post to the more, um, strident discussion next door...)


[This message has been edited by Tamara (edited October 29, 2000).]
 
It just worries me that when they try to take our guns away, all the gung ho cops we read about every day will still have theirs.
 
I'd say that cop possessed the minimum of "gung-ho." By minimum, I mean that's the least possible amount for a living police officer. If he went around NOT shooting people who pointed guns at him, he'd be a dead cop in short order.
If you point something that looks like a gun at a cop by accident, you are the victim of your own unfortunate accident. If you point something INTENDED to look like a gun at a cop (or any stranger, for that matter) and he shoots you, don't look so damn surprised. You asked for it.

The issue here is whether the man pointed the gun at the officer. No one seems to be disputing that, so it's obviously a "good" shooting in the sense that the cop is not at fault here.
 
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