Naked student shot dead in Alabama

[CountDeMoney]

Wasn't there some shit a few years back about a Muslim wedding killing somebody with their airshots?

Fun fact:  17 people died from falling rounds the day Kuwait City was liberated in '91 from all the dune monkeys firing in the air.

[DGuller]

Interestingly enough, I always bought into the "if you have to shoot, shoot to kill" philosophy, until this thread where Seedy's lame attempts to defend me made me go back and think it over.

[CountDeMoney]

Interestingly enough, I always bought into the "if you have to shoot, shoot to kill" philosophy, until this thread where Seedy's lame attempts to defend me made me go back and think it over.

You go ahead and do that.  Think it over.

[Tamas]

This might be just urban legend but a I heard a guy claiming that his police officer friend told him he and his colleagues were told, when about to face a gypsy lynchmob, to make sure and fire their clip to the air so the civilians would not get their hand on a loaded gun when overpowering them. 

[Tamas]

I appreciate warning shots and shots to the leg, except that the latter sounds awfully tricky to pull off in a high-stress situation (ie. against anyone but angry housewifes standing still while yelling), and the former either causing too long a delay to save an innocent life, or can be pretty easily dodged by a trigger-happy cop (face the opponent, shoot two into him, one into the air, dare CSI to figure out which of the 3 happened first )

[Neil]

Wasn't there some shit a few years back about a Muslim wedding killing somebody with their airshots?

Yes, falling bullets can kill (though I'm not sure if pistol bullets have enough of a terminal velocity and the height to do it).  However, shooting a gun in general is dangerous, and bystanders can always get hurt.  It's a matter of contrasting different options, you don't get to critique a certain method in isolation.  When the benchmark method is shooting to kill whenever you have to shoot, the bar is fairly low to find a better alternative method, as dangerous as it would be itself.

That's the whole point though.  If somebody makes a cop use his gun, it's important that person be killed.

[Syt]

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/bullets-fired-up-uncut.htm

[Ed Anger]

Ugh, Mythbusters. Might as well give a pistol to 5 chimps in a field and see what happens.

Then blow the chimps up.

[CountDeMoney]

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/bullets-fired-up-uncut.htm

Why are they using paintball guns with compressed air to make this point?

[MadImmortalMan]

This might be just urban legend but a I heard a guy claiming that his police officer friend told him he and his colleagues were told, when about to face a gypsy lynchmob, to make sure and fire their clip to the air so the civilians would not get their hand on a loaded gun when overpowering them. 

Magazine.

[CountDeMoney]

 

[Tamas]

WHATEVER!

[garbon]

Wasn't there some shit a few years back about a Muslim wedding killing somebody with their airshots?

Yes, falling bullets can kill (though I'm not sure if pistol bullets have enough of a terminal velocity and the height to do it).  However, shooting a gun in general is dangerous, and bystanders can always get hurt.  It's a matter of contrasting different options, you don't get to critique a certain method in isolation.  When the benchmark method is shooting to kill whenever you have to shoot, the bar is fairly low to find a better alternative method, as dangerous as it would be itself.

That's the whole point though.  If somebody makes a cop use his gun, it's important that person be killed.

Yeah because cops are never trigger happy.

[merithyn]

This actually terrifies me with Jeremy. Someone in a hypoglycemic bout looks and acts a hell of a lot like someone either drunk or on drugs. I know, I've been punched in the jaw by one while on the ambulance. 

My first thought when I read this was: druggie. Then it was: shit, diabetic?

I get why the cop shot the kid. He seriously worried for his life. But he was outside a police station where presumably other officers would have been able to help him, or at least bring him a tazer or pepper spray or something. Hard to know what I would do in that situation, but killing the kid seems like it was the poorer option.

[Phillip V]

The kid weighed 135 pounds and was 5-foot-7.