Posted by Manco: Well, I wouldn't be aiming at his butt.
Right--you will not be
aiming at any part of him. You aren't at the range.
If I have a good shot opportunity at his brain, then he'll go down instantaneously--he won't even feel a thing.
Methinks you should invest in some high quality defensive pistol shooting training, and perhaps some interactive training with simunitions.
One is trained to draw fast and to shoot instantly and rapidly at COM. There's a reason for that. Targets in real confrontations do not stand still--they move and shoot back. The head is just much too difficult to hit with confidence.
Perhaps you should also look at some accounts of actual police gunfights (such as the
one we had here in town yesterday, where one perp was hit in the hand and in the ankle and in the buttocks, and the other in the head
twice, and in the wrist. Both have been released from the hospital, by the way).
Don't jump to any conclusions about police skills and training. All of the officers I've shot with are good. One hit a torso sized steal plate at fifty yards strong hand, weak hand, and strong hand upside down. That was just for fun; real tactical situations don't involve that kind of thing.
Your "good shot opportunity at his brain" is the stuff of pure fantasy. Seriously, do you think he will stand still for you?
On the other hand, if I didn't think that I could hit him with sufficient precision (e.g. too much movement of his head, too much shaking of my hands), then I wouldn't take the shot.
Now
that's some good thinking. And that is most likely the outcome.
Of course, if you do not have sufficient training to understand the likelihood that that head will move just as you fire, or that the CNS is a small portion of the head, you may make a very poor decision through overconfidence.
It's hard to say which option [intervene or not] gives one the greatest odds of survival overall because we'd have to judge how likely the perp is to senselessly kill the cashier.
Yes we would, but it isn't that hard. If the guy orders the cashier into the back room, the game is on. But if he does not, the
general likelihood that he will shoot is generally less than 25%, and that means that the likelihood that he will kill is around 2-3%.
But if you intervene, the likelihood that he will shoot really, really skyrockets.
Legal considerations aside, what makes it a good idea for a police officer to escalate the situation? Does that improve the odds of the cashier's survival over surreptitiously waiting for the robbery to end first?
Nothing, but the officer is sworn to perform a duty, and he or she is trained. He or she will not shoot unless he or she has to and can do so, and if things go south
and they followed procedure properly the mess is not on their nickel.
But then I'd be in trouble [with the perp's accomplice] regardless of whether I take the shot.
How so? If he has remained in the background, your producing a weapon will alert him and he will surely shoot you.
Of course, I'd want more precision and certainty in a real scenario,...
Get some
real training. Precision and certainty is for snipers.
Happens that I know a couple of former police snipers. They used very good scoped rifles, and they had spotters and someone to tell them whether to shoot.