learn German and read the police laws, as long as it not clear the suspect carries any explosives and tries to kill many people they aren't allowed to kill. They're only allowed to immobilise the target.

If they don't obey these rules, bye bye job and hello prison.

And they are only allowed to shoot adults, shooting children must be allowed by higher instances.

@Rasczak, ye i get it, split second call. If not by imagining the situation, how the hell am i supposed to even discuss it?
BTW they did have a chance to imagine situations like this. Someone who trained them might have been in situations like this, and have thought about what kinds of reactions might be a good idea. Isnt that what training is for?

"He never threatened the officer. What actually took place, they allowed him to run up the steps to go and grab a weapon and then they decided to shot my brother in-law in the chest as well as his neck,"
As i see it, the 15yr-old was probably at a distance if he ran up some steps to get that iron.(Maybe not such a split second then..) And i would expect two police officers to be able to take an iron from a 15yr-old. If you see it coming, i doubt a 15yr-old can swing he iron at your head without your arm between it.(unless he is a ninja or something..) Breaking an arm is much preferable to killing someone.

Even if he hit your head, chances are you only end up with a headache. Of course, the statement might be misleading/wrong. Maybe they were cought off guard with really only a split second. But if it was as the statement implies, they were either not paying enough attention, they were not trained well enough, or they were just trigger-happy and wanted to kill someone.

Yes, that's what training is for. In a situation like this, they are trained to fire two shots center of mass. That's what they did.


What is the deal with 15-year old kids where you guys live? Are they still in diapers? Here they are generally fully grown and about a year short of getting their drivers license.

I'm sure there will be an investigation and people with all the facts will make a call. It may very well turn out the police action was not justified, but there is nothing in this story that forces me to believe that.

All the monday-morning quarterbacking is childish and pathetic tho.

IMO that is the most important note to make. I feel the same way, except i lean more towards it probably not having been justified.

I dont know, most 15yr-olds dont seem as strong as older kids, but i guess there are quiet a few exceptions. (btw you can only get the drivers licence at 18yr here.)

Then the training is wrong. If a police officer is being threatened by a 15 year old with an iron in the UK, I seriously doubt they would call in armed police... What they would do is either, back away and talk the kid down, or use their batton to disarm them - a swift hit to the arm would soon solve the issue. Are you telling me that the only way out of that situation is to follow training and shoot a 15 year old in the chest??


A 15 year old is not a strong adult. They have much less upper body strength than a grown adult - and as such, the threat of one wielding an iron is not the same as an adult. It reduces the potential injury that could be caused. In this case, the officer, at worst, would have suffered a bit of a bruise - there are very few 5lb irons around any more!

Investigations by the police, about the police, are rarely fair.

I'm really puzzled by this. I'm curious where you're finding your 15-year-olds as well. When I was 15, I promise you wouldn't have wanted to stand there and let me hit you with an iron. Would it kill him? Probably not. Would it stun him? Certainly. Then the kid (obviously angry and out of control) would probably continue to pound the guy with the iron and maybe that would kill him. The officer certainly would stand a good chance of defending himself with a baton, but... "bit of a bruise"? Maybe it's all the growth hormones, but we grow 15-year-olds bigger and stronger than that.

How many times have you shot a firearm, MRiGnS? You write as though you have either little or no experience of them.

I was drafted, I know how to shoot.

But I begin to wonder why the armed forces still use firearms when Irons are so effective and cheap...

Four sue police, alleging "dirty tactics" - Multimedia from The Oregonian - OregonLive.com

Pro Libertate: The "Showtime Syndrome"

I'm sure the use of force was justified in those cases, too. /sarcasm

WTF: they would have been legally allowed to kill a criminal, even if they could have avoided it! The police werent the only ones who wronged. Either the law or the article did too.
Also the reflexive support! Some policemen are just in the job because of the power it creates for them, and many cases are damned important things; not something to reflexively support the cop for.

It's called the castle doctorine, and it depends on what state you live in. It's more to protect homeowners from litigation in the rare case that they do have to shoot someone then to sanction them shooting. Also, it's a good deterent.

The police have no responisibility to protect you. They are responsible for making arrests after the fact. If you want to be protected, you have to do it, yourself.

Edit:

Too fucking right. It's tough luck for the criminal. Death is a hazard of the job for them.

That is horribly unreasonable, the discrepancy between thievery and killing.
It also totally ignores that the reason someone might get astray on someone elses property might not be malicious. Someone might have accidentally left the door open, and someone else might have mistaken which room he went in.
Someone might have forgotten something in someone elses home, and thought he could get it by going through a open window. Some idiot could have forgotten he had guests.

There is so much that could go wrong if people thought it is a good idea to shoot trespassers. And that is exactly what allowing this promotes.

well, lets face it, america is the land of the crazy, not very intelligent, conservative, super religious people, that just love to kill for the fun of it...

even though i still dont get how it all fits together

When you make gross generalizations, you're generally wrong.

As for a homeowner's right to defend themselves and their families, you're going to have to do better than hypotheticals to make a convincing arguement against it.

Secondly, it's not about shooting "trespassers". It's specifically about defending "against an attack, burglary, or arson". None of those are simple trespassing.

My first argument was not hypothetical. I doubt you think the discrepancy in force between burglary and murder is reasonable.
Why are hypothetical arguments bad? Arent these cases likely to happen now and then?

Ok, it is not when just tresspassing, but people are still putting up signs: "those who tresspass shall be shot" probably because of it.

I don't consider self-defense to be murder. Should I be forced to run away or wait until myself or my loved ones are physically injured to fight back? I'd call that unreasonable.

Hypothetical arguements aren't required to have any basis in fact or reality. That's what makes them poor arguements. What if the sky turns green? What if water flows uphill?

See what I mean? That statement has no basis in reality. Have you ever seen such a sign, and if you have, what makes you think it has any relation to the law? Is it possible that a person displaying such a sign has no concern for the law or displays it purely for the deterrent factor? And, we're off, into hypothetical land, again.

Huh, so all your opinions are based on non-hypothetical cases? Hell, even when we are discussing news articles, it might aswell have been a hypothetical case, considering how little information those give.
Nuclear war is also 'just hypothetical'.
If you thought self-defense was the only reason to be allowed to kill, you would not support it relating where it happened. And when is it okey to assume that someone is a deadly threat? Just burgling a house does not sound like it cuts it.

Tell that to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

My opinions are based on reality, as I percieve it. You asked why I considered hypotheticals to be poor arguements. You have your answer.

Self-defense doesn't require a deadly threat. It merely requires there be a threat. I'd say breaking into my home is certainly a threat.

That is, without a doubt, the most moronic reason I have ever read on this forum.

"Oh, this looks like my house here. I'll just climb in through that partially open window and have a look."



I can't believe it. I totally agree with you.