What's really odd is that there were "49 warning shots". Police in the US aren't allowed to fire warning shots. For good reason too, it's a completely reckless thing to do.
Coming from Norway i find the very notion that police carry guns very strange. I also feel less safe when I'm around guns, be that of police or just regular citizen.
Also, I seriously doubt you would feel less safe in an FBI office than a ghetto in London. One is full of guns, the other is full of danger.
You also conclude that firing warning shots means that they have no backup, again, you have no idea what their rules of engagements are or what situation they were in and what the circumstances was.
Are you entirely certain that these shots were fired high up in the air, instead of, say, 5 meters up ahead (or behind, for extra safety) of someone running away, into the ground?
Leaving that aside (I might be totally wrong and you can convince me of that): "Last resort" leaves only room for one single thing, right? And I'd put "shoot at a person" in that place, after all (potentially?) dangerous acts of warning.
I would think those would endanger bystanders much more than shots fired into the air (which might only kill you if you are really, really, unlucky, as in 'having a weak skull and watching up, getting the bullet in an eye socket' or so.
Source:
http://mythbustersresults.com/episode50
Bullets fired into the air maintain their lethal capability when they eventually fall back down.
busted / plausible / confirmed
In the case of a bullet fired at a precisely vertical angle (something extremely difficult for a human being to duplicate), the bullet would tumble, lose its spin, and fall at a much slower speed due to terminal velocity and is therefore rendered less than lethal on impact. However, if a bullet is fired upward at a non-vertical angle (a far more probable possibility), it will maintain its spin and will reach a high enough speed to be lethal on impact. Because of this potentiality, firing a gun into the air is illegal in most states, and even in the states that it is legal, it is not recommended by the police. Also the MythBusters were able to identify two people who had been injured by falling bullets, one of them fatally injured. To date, this is the only myth to receive all three ratings at the same time.
Most people during the day are under the roof, and with average population in New York being 10 000 persons/km2, sth like 99% of that under the roof at any time, so the figure goes down to 100 people per km2, assuming people are 0.5 m2 target for the bullet it's 50 m2 / 1000000 m2 , or 1 chance in 20 000. And I probably still overestimated that.
Certainly odds that bullet aimed at someone will hit are much higher (yeah, I know, it's most probably criminal you are shooting at, and falling bullet will most probably hit bystander).
EDIT: and warning shot can be shoot to the ground near the criminal, or into a wall.
But I agree with the idea of aiming towards locations where the bullet is likely to penetrate but not go through. The ground might be dangerous because of the potential for ricochet - but many other surfaces could be adequate.
Warnings shots fired in public are virtually always reckless.
And no where did I claim or imply that US police never engage in reckless behavior.
Note that some evidence suggests she was also the initial aggressor, which likely contributed to her conviction.
The chance of someone being injured by a "warning shot" is essentially the proportion of the ground surface which is occupied by a person. Unless you're in a crowded area, this is very low - in fact I would think it's less likely than a bystander being struck by a horizontally-fired bullet that misses its intended target.
Also warning shot is frequently likely to prevent the harm on the person that otherwise would be shot. Isn't it enough?
While I can't speak to the experiences in Germany, I would presume that a society that largely eschews the personal possession of firearms would have a built-in perception that anything is better than pointing one at a person. Whereas, in the US we might argue that the weapon should not be drawn unless you have every intent to take a life. (Outside of practice towards targets.)
If a german officer wants to use his firearm, he has to warn the other party either verbally or ideally with a warning shot, if time permits and if no immediate threat exists to the officer himself or other persons.
I would agree with you if they were using high powered rifles with armour piercing rounds, but most shots fired by police are from hand guns.
When I was enlisted we were trained to fire warningshots in the ground or something hard in near proximity of the target. This way you knew that your bullet would land within a visible area that you would be able to make sure was reasonably safe.
A gun is a lethal weapon, and it is used to kill. When a gun is used the shooter has to be thinking that someone needs to be killed.
"Warning shots" carry the risk of injuring / killing innocent people. They also carry a risk of injuring / killing the criminal. That risk is unacceptable.
Warning shots mean that guns are used before they absolutely have to be used. But if warning shots are needed why not have one officer armed with a blank-firing pistol?
Think about risk and probability. The probability of any of these warning shots actually hitting, hurting or even killing someone is extremely low. I'm not aware of any warning shot fired by the German police ever hurting anyone.
So, 50 years or so of warning shots and no one was hurt. If a warning shot kills someone today, those 50 years of warning shots only had to save two lives (someone decides to give up instead of seeking confrontation and being killed) to be worth it.
I think it's pretty simple, actually. On the whole, warning shots seem quite beneficial, that more than outweighs the low probability of hurting or killing someone.
But humans are bad at dealing with probability, so your error is understandable.
Bullets fired into the air have regularly caused deaths and injuries around the world. [1]
In several US states firing a bullet into the air is a crime, in some, a felony. [1, below]
I find it difficult to believe that any person is well trained enough to take all critical factors into account during an armed encounter to determine whether or not a bullet will ricochet off a non-target surface, and in what direction it will ricochet. [2]
"So, 50 years or so of warning shots and no one was hurt. If a warning shot kills someone today, those 50 years of warning shots only had to save two lives (someone decides to give up instead of seeking confrontation and being killed) to be worth it.
I think it's pretty simple, actually. On the whole, warning shots seem quite beneficial, that more than outweighs the low probability of hurting or killing someone."
I find this a starkly terrible calculus. Are you really saying that cops can kill one innocent person for every two potential deaths they may or may not have prevented?
"But humans are bad at dealing with probability, so your error is understandable."
Consider this statement in light of actual statistics.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire#Falling-bul... (Numerous citations)
[2] http://books.google.com/books?id=VbrDbbHAflsC&pg=PA109&#...
EDIT: In the essence of improving one's self, what about this rebuttal causes so many downvotes?
Firing shots at people is also illegal in most situations pretty much anywhere. The police gets an exemption from that blanket rule under very specific conditions. I’m consequently not sure of what the fact that firing shots in the air is illegal is supposed to convince me.
I don’t think people or the police should be allowed to fire in the air for no reason at all. That’s obviously stupid. That does certainly not mean that firing in the air can never be a great idea under very specific conditions.
I do not deny that bullets fired in the air are dangerous – but the probability of them actually being dangerous is extremely low. That’s the whole point.
I'm also not sure what that dig about probability is supposed to me. I think that probability is easy enough to roughly estimate and that any estimate leads to extremely low numbers. Estimate the area of humans exposed to the sky that would also lead to death if hit, compare it to the area of ground. For that second one you can use some densely populated area to get an upper bound.
That celebratory gunfire is common in some countries and that it – despite hundreds of shots being fired in the air – leads to only very few deaths should already tell you something about the low probability. (Celebratory gunfire is obviously stupid, though. There is no good reason to do it, nothing that could outweigh the probability of hurting or killing someone.)
2. It wouldn't be worth killing a single innocent bystander to save 10 violent criminals in my book.
3. German police very rarely fire warning shots at all. That doesn't make it not reckless, it just makes a bad outcome less likely to occur.
Something with a low probability of hurting someone and done with good justification cannot be reckless in my eye. Celebratory gunfire? Reckless. Warning shots? Not.