Delete comment from: The War on Guns
I'm afraid the correspondents who suggest that the police receive no training to deal with "armed innocents" situations are quite wrong. I have nearly two decades of police experience which ended in 1998. Even in the 80's and 90's, every police officer in the nation practiced "shoot/don't shoot" exercises that included armed innocents. The message? Everyone with a gun is not a bad guy and you can't shoot people just because they're armed.
This is in fact a fundamental part of police training from the basic to advanced levels. The law does not allow police officers to indiscriminately fire at anyone who is armed in their field of view, and every competent police officer knows this. Each and every competent American cop knows that they will come into contact with armed people every day and it does not bother them in the least. Why not? The police know they have nothing at all to fear from honest armed citizens. And so they are alert and careful, and they aren't trigger happy.
Yes, there is potential for accidents in such situations. Yes, officers can and do make mistakes. But this is an argument for better, more specific training, not for disarming the public.
When a police chief or sheriff moans that his troops are going to kill armed innocents, local citizens are faced with one or two scenarios: He's lying in pursuit of an anti-freedom, gun control goal, or he really isn't providing his troops with the minimum training necessary to protect the public, to say nothing of the lives of the officers. In either case, this is someone who should not be in a position of public trust.
May 26, 2008, 4:43:00 AM
Posted to Anticipation