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Comment by bigyikes | Hacker News Reader

I had an identical first-time experience a few months ago. For some reason I was expecting the Glock to be way easier and less terrifying than the AR, but it wasn't. It really blew my mind that I could aim directly at a human-sized target only 6 feet away and totally miss.

Isn't the first thing they tell you about guns something like "don't point it at anything you don't intend to destroy"? How does a trained officer hear that two children are in the house and not immediately de-escalate? This is insanity.

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> How does a trained officer hear that two children are in the house and not immediately de-escalate?

Unfortunately the police shoot kids fairly routinely, as lawyer Greg Doucette shows in this twitter thread.

https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1336132653481865217

After reading through the linked thread I'm taken aback by the sheer number of deaths that don't seem to get any kind of coverage in the national press (and that's only for people accidentally shot as the police were trying to kill their pet).

Considering the sheer number of killings, this can and really should be reported in much a similar way to a protracted war, as it does look very much to be an extended attack upon civilians by an armed forces of sorts.

Some cops receive training that teaches them to escalate.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/08/warrior-cop-clas...

bigyikes says >"It really blew my mind that I could aim directly at a human-sized target only 6 feet away and totally miss."<

No surprise. Even after years of training many, if not most, police officers miss close-up shots more often than they hit. There's a surveillance video somewhere of a security guard and a perp shooting their firearms at each other from about 3 feet apart: they miss every shot. One had a revolver and the other a semi-automatic. It is somewhat reminiscent of the "apartment scene" in Pulp Fiction but even wilder and less believable:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6YBKdmOlM8

Shooting a target at a range is very different from drawing and shooting at real people who are moving toward/away from you, possibly with ill intent and possibly armed.

For police, entering a building with a search warrant is not something to be done with a firearm holstered. You have no idea what you're up against in that situation.

> For police, entering a building with a search warrant is not something to be done with a firearm holstered. You have no idea what you're up against in that situation.

This is a ridiculous rationalization that could be applied to literally anyone or anything.

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