You’ve probably heard someone you know or, at least, someone online opine that police shouldn’t shoot to kill when they draw their firearms. Instead, they should wound people by hitting a leg or an arm. The most ignorant of this crowd ask “why not just shoot the gun out of the criminal’s hand?”
Our commander-in-chief, President Joe Biden, is apparently one such person. While giving a speech at the National Action Network’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast in Washington, the “leader” of the free world decided to weigh in on your local police force should be handling situations where a firearm is necessary.
“We have to retrain cops,” said Biden. “Why should you always shoot with deadly force? The fact is if you need to use your weapon, you don’t have to do that.”
Incredible.
Firstly, getting shot in the leg or the arm doesn’t guarantee one survives being shot. Hitting an artery is a solid way to bleed out swiftly if help doesn’t come soon enough.
That said, it’s pretty clear that Biden and people like him have watched one too many action movies. In cinema, the gunman of great skill retains an unchanging grim, if not uncaring expression as he casually shoots the extremities of his opponent, rendering them helpless and allowing him to get the info he needs. Even in the midst of chaos, he never loses his cool and his aim is always perfect.
In real life, adrenaline is shooting through the body putting the brain in fight or flight mode. The hands can get very shaky and one’s aim becomes less reliable. Even if the person wielding the gun is steady and aiming as best they can in these high-stakes situations, his target might be moving swiftly or even shooting back, making the shooter’s aim that much less accurate.
Hitting a limb is a gamble and the odds aren’t in favor of the shooter. The shot is likely to either miss or hit the larger part of the person’s body.
This is why police are trained to shoot at center mass when relying on deadly force. They aren’t trained to shoot to wound, it’s to kill. Anything else risks the life of the officer and runs the risk of hitting anyone behind the target.
Biden clearly doesn’t understand this because Biden, like many anti-gun Democrats, has little to no experience with firearms. He’s had all of his needs for protection taken care of for him. Yet he moralizes about what the people who protect us every day should do when in situations he’s never, and will never, be in.
This is just another example of a Democrat’s need to virtue signal in ignorance making it possible for people who know better to be put in danger.