Only police should have guns???

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A crowded city street is the last place I'd want to be tested on these skills.
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Very true...and I might add, if you've never been to downtown Manhattan or almost anywhere in downtown NYC @ 0900, you've not really experienced a crowded street.

Auto traffic will most likely be at a literal standstill and the street traffic(people walking) flows in waves. Street corners can be very deep with people waiting to cross streets.

Would be any cops worse nightmare to be getting shot at by someone standing amidst many people on a street corner and have no choice but to fire towards the crowd.

Course, the flip side to the strict gun control laws in NYC(and elsewhere) spearheaded by the likes of Bloomberg, is if a citizen standing next to the shooter in the crowd would have been armed, it's possible that citizen could have stuck a pistol in the shooters ear and saved a few people from getting shot.

Too, the way the gun laws are in NYC, if there was an armed citizen standing right next to the shooter and shot the perp saving others from being shot, that armed citizen would go to prison for being armed.
 
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Personally of course i understand that sometimes in the line of duty sometimes things happen. I guarantee the officers didnt plan on/intend for bystanders to be hurt so i dont fault them for it too much. Ive been behind the point for a long time that armed citizens usually do train to shoot more than some police do. That one excells only in what they enjoy and one who does it for sport rather than just duty will do that much better. On top of that im sure police who hit bystanders are disciplined at least to some degree but im not entirely sure that they face the same consequences/charges/jury trial for it the same way a civillian would because theirs is done "in the line of duty", and ours is not, therefore its that much more important for armed citizens to hit what they aim at. Armed citizens are not all "amateurs" and the police are not all "professionals" when it comes to shooting. I just wish the statists would just come clean.
 
Maybe this is too obvious, but I would want to know if they dropped to the ground so they would be shooting UP toward the guy with the gun, thereby avoiding collateral hits on the bystanders, many of whom were also presumably on the ground when the shooting started.
 
While the details on this incident will come out in time, I do feel that any loss of life is sad...

With that said, any increase in firearms training of any sort by most agencies would be fought tooth and nail to the end. There are many reasons behind this that range from everything from simply scheduling the training due to pulling officers from the street, to the other end of increasing the budget for the added expense. Also keep in mind, that if it goes out an agency is buying "X" amount of ammo, there will be various "tin foil hat theories" that will pop up as well...

Crankgrinder said:
Ive been behind the point for a long time that armed citizens usually do train to shoot more than some police do.
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Just curious... Do you have a formal study that shows this? Ive often been curious about this, as many folks I know who have a concealed carry permit but a large number of them rarely to never practice any since going through the required class. I know several folks who got their carry permit back in the 90's when they came out and have never fired one since required to in the class, but still carry daily. The number of folks I know of who actively engage in regular practice, formal classes, and a shooting discipline is small.

I would definatly love to see a study on those that have a CCW and how often they shoot though. I think it would be enlightening.
 
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The video released shows clearly one officer backing up and taking an apparent sighted two handed stance as he retreated, ending up behind the only cover available, a street light and low planter, while he engages the suspect at a very close range. The second officer creates lateral distance to the left, but shoots one handed.

http://uservideos.sma****s.com/vide...oting-near-empire-state-building-youtube.html

As for the difference in hit percentages for CCW and PD, GunFacts has this jewel, "11% of police shootings kill an innocent person - about 2% of shootings by citizens kill and innocent person."

This was taken from "Shall Issue; The New Wave of Concealed Handgun Permit Laws", Cramer and Kopel, Independence Institute issue paper, October 17th, 1994. Hope that helps.
 
I think the biggest hang up on more firearms training for LE(or anyone for that matter) is money.

I don't know if citizens or local/state LE train more or less than each other, but given that individual LEO essentially have immunity for their actions while on duty and their likelihood of needing to use a firearm is arguably higher, the amount of training should correspond to that. Now if only government budgets weren't in the proverbial toilet maybe they could fund more training.

I think this incident highlights the fine line between protecting the public and putting the public in harms way. From the video that's available it appears(not certain but it appears to be so) the shooter(BG) was no longer a threat to the general public, until the police engaged him. In that attempt to protect the public the police ended up hurting the public.

This is not a sleight against those officers, as they could not predict his reaction to being caught up with. However, hopefully this incident will at least highlight the need for more training for the average LEO, as it seems woefully insufficient when so many are injured in the process of stopping 1 non-active shooter.
 
Ah, but think about this headline, if NYPD increases firearms training drastically to meet this problem head on...

"Police department orders millions of rounds of deadly hollow point ammunition!'

Wait, where have I seen that before...
 
As I watched the video, a couple things came to mind. Especially since there's no sound to the vid...

1) When LEO's were coming up behind shooter, did shooter arbitrarily look back and see the LEO's or did LEO's alert shooter to stop?

2) The vid was not very long. One LEO fired 9 times while the other fired 7.
Understanding the shooter had a gun on them, it would be interesting to know the speed at which these officers fired their shots.
 
Many of the people who win national match competitions carry guns, Many of the same are also cops. It is also accepted as scientific fact that one whose done something all his life because he's enoyed it since he was a young kid will almost always excell above one who only just now entered the police accademy at say 23- 25 or so, and only just now started shooting simply because it is requirement that he do so. I agree a study would be great to see, perhaps before the end of all the debates it will be absolutely necessary but, who will fund this study? the brady campaign? the republicans? a gun magazine? im sure that will almost certainly affect the results also, all ccw holders would have to be surveyed, and then are they telling the truth? Awfull lot of holes there id say and thats only the tip of it. My opinion, and thats all it is could always be wrong in some way for sure, but i know many ccw folks who are in fact great shooters and do so religiously. You say you know many ccw holders who never shoot since taking the required test i say this is simply an irresponsible act considering the personal investment not only to their own safety but to those around them as well.
 
Maybe the police should be handed tasers and pepper spray - that way their collateral damage will be minimized, and since they typically show up AFTER the fact (remember NYC has cameras and drones), none of them need guns because the populace is unarmed - according to Bloomberg
 
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