An idea for LEOs.....

[rwsmith]

Would it be feasible to enter a situation with a gun that was a 9mm carbine on top and a bean bag or rubber bullet cannon below? A crazy guy just got killed today for running at police that warned him to stop. There are too many incidences where the only option is to go from verbal commands straight to lethal force. Would a combination gun work for these situations? Especially when the police pull up in a car they wouldn't have to tote such a weapon around with them. The length would only be governed by the minimum barrel of the cannon because anything over 4" like a standard arm is good for the 9mm to be effective. I realize these device can be lethal depending on where the person is hit, but they would have a 90% chance of survival over a 90% chance of getting killed by a bullet. Feedback please.

 

[tacreload]

RW I can understand what you are saying but in all reality there are occasions when regular ammo doesn't stop an attacker in time.I don't know for sure but rubber bullets may also fail to stop. Police officers have very little reaction time to make that call"Real ammo or rubber bullet".Public knowledge of rubber ammunition would probably just embolden some of these attacks on police. Was the guy was crazy or on meth or on crack or any of the other implements of self destruction?That would be a tough call for an officer to make. Sorry the guy was killed,sorry anyone gets killed in that manor but it was his choice sane or otherwise. He could have been aiming to hurt someone who couldn't fight back instead. I have sympathy but not that much. Sorry if any offense is taken by anyone.

 

[e3mrk]

I'm on the side of the Officer on this one.
Meth Heads and Crack Heads can have almost super human strength when high and the Officer had to protect Himself and Those around Him.

 

[Goldstar225]

IMO that would be a huge "OOPS" waiting to happen. "I meant to beanbag him (when lethal force isn't justified) and hit the wrong switch".

 

[Franklin]

How about this......... FOLLOW THE LEO'S INSTRUCTIONS and you won't get shot.

 

[Ranger17]

How about this......... FOLLOW THE LEO'S INSTRUCTIONS and you won't get shot.

I have been leaning this way when i hear of a shooting. We have one now up here in Madison; i actually try to avoid much of the news until the inquiry is finished so my opinion is based on as much fact that i can gather rather than being reactive to news and heresay. Even then the level on info can be minimal.
And yes each case may have unique circumstances but if people would first listen to and follow commands that in itself may keep said incident from reaching a deadly conclusion.

 

[da gimp]

giving folks a reason to pause before they attack a law enforcement officer is why most departments have a K9 detachment............. when most idiots will try to take on an officer or two... & some even enjoy the fight, knowing they're going to eventually lose....... the very presence of a good Doberman, German Shepherd, Schnauzer, Begian Malinois(?spelling) will cause dern near all to reconsider their intended stupidity......some are so dumb that they even carry thru even with a dog deployed.

I see what you are driving at.. but even with the shotgun launched less lethal rubber bullets/slugs........they can cause lethal injuries if they hit the wrong spots on the torso, neck or head........and they regularly fail to stop attacks by determined attackers in mobs/rioters....with their failure rate being so high.. & the risks to the officers using them are also increased........... I cannot see any advantage to using them over MACE/Tasers/PR24's etc that are already in use.

 

[Malpasowildlifer]

Second. The reactionary gap is almost often too small to move a selector switch from less lethal to lethal force.

As Tasers became more mainstream, there was an idea of putting a Taser underneath a long gun, much like an M-16/M203 set-up. However, there is the issue of sympathetic/both index fingers making the same motion if each hand is handling a force option.

Also, many situations presented as innocent/not a threat by the anti-LE/FSA cartels such as "he was holding a knife/bat/rock" etc., are often situations where deadly force is easily justified, and the use of less-lethal force such as a Taser/rubber bullet/beanbag round are not appropriate.

RW I can understand what you are saying but in all reality there are occasions when regular ammo doesn't stop an attacker in time.I don't know for sure but rubber bullets may also fail to stop. Police officers have very little reaction time to make that call"Real ammo or rubber bullet".Public knowledge of rubber ammunition would probably just embolden some of these attacks on police. Was the guy was crazy or on meth or on crack or any of the other implements of self destruction?That would be a tough call for an officer to make. Sorry the guy was killed,sorry anyone gets killed in that manor but it was his choice sane or otherwise. He could have been aiming to hurt someone who couldn't fight back instead. I have sympathy but not that much. Sorry if any offense is taken by anyone.

 

[4011]

What amazes
me is the dumb --- will not follow the Comands of the officer. The officer has a drawn weapon an the guy knows he will die of a gunshot. But he will lay down his weapon when the big ole dog gets after him. They have more respect for the dog than a human!

 

[mstem]

My mama told me a looooong time ago when a police officer tell you to do something to shut up & do what he says. Or suffer for it. And if he shoots you for not doing what you were told I'm not going to blame the police officer.

It was good advice 50+years ago & it is good advice now. Stop blaming the cops for stupid actions of criminals!!!!

 

[Rogue Wizard]

I have seen videos of meth-heads/crack-heads in action. Those drugs give them a super-human strength (at a very terrible physical price). One of the videos was of a guy who wasn't that big or heavy but amp'd up big-time on meth. It took four BIG LEO's to take him down and keep him down so the could hook him up. That was after they had deployed the taser and tagged him twice (he just blinked at them). The one thing that I thought of at the time was "pepper spray or a bean-bag gun would probably be useless".

I had a dog trainer use my grounds to hold classes on training dogs for a sport that resembled police dogs (I can't remember the name of the sport). I got to wear "the suit" which makes you look like the Michelin man. I then was told to act aggressively and use a bamboo slap stick (makes a crack like a whip). The dogs are taught to wait for the verbal command and when they get it they light into you. You cannot BELIEVE the feeling of those dogs when they bite into you and start yanking you around. They are fast and strong and a few of them were very strategic (would feign a bite to the leg and then grab the groin). I can see why perps are given pause when a police dog is threatened.

 

[badge]

You attack an officer you should EXPECT to get shot. Period. Never ceases to amaze me that people feel sorry for these thugs that get exactly what THEY asked for. Now, if it's a situation that can be controlled and a non lethal weapon can be deployed then that is great. No loss of life and everyone goes home. Otherwise, you pay's your money and you get's what's comin' to ya, as they say.

 

[ImprovedModel56Fan]

Police are ineffective enough as it is (not their fault - the BGs just try to do their thing when the police are elsewhere). Now you want to reduce the incentive for sociopaths not to attack police?

I believe that it is in the public interest that people who attack police with deadly force NOT survive the encounter. Your opinion may differ, but I don't apologize for mine. That said, I still have some sympathy for nut cases who don't know any better. Is there any way that the legal system could possibly exact all or most of the penalty from the psychiatrist, judge, lawmaker or "civil rights" organization responsible for having these unfortunate individuals out on the streets rather than in a prison or funny farm where they belong?

 

[cowart]

How about this......... FOLLOW THE LEO'S INSTRUCTIONS and you won't get shot.

Our local PD shoots people pretty regularly, almost monthly since 2010, to the point where the Justice Dept has come down on them.

A *lot* of these shootings involve mentally ill homeless street people. These people simply don't respond to verbal commands in the manner officers are accustomed to when dealing with normal people. When the officers issue verbal commands in a loud voice, it just seems to encourage these people to resist.

Comparison: APD shoots, kills more than other agencies | KRQE News 13

 

[mstem]

You attack an officer you should EXPECT to get shot. Period. Never ceases to amaze me that people feel sorry for these thugs that get exactly what THEY asked for. Now, if it's a situation that can be controlled and a non lethal weapon can be deployed then that is great. No loss of life and everyone goes home. Otherwise, you pay's your money and you get's what's comin' to ya, as they say.

Is there any way to triple "like" this?

 

[LMWIS]

The original OP's post referenced 'crazy guy', rather than a run of the mill criminal. I think most are okay with someone in charge of their faculties making his decision and reaping his own reward. It's when the person is mentally disturbed that the discussion becomes less sure.

The difficulty with less than lethal force options are they don't work as effectively as lethal force options, and often are more cumbersome to deploy. In our Service, the TASER and pepper spray etc are 'planned use' force options, and sometimes the dynamic nature of the situation makes deployment impossible.

As an aside, the original TASERs were black, but were changed to yellow after an officer mistakenly deployed their firearm instead of the TASER when confronted by a violent individual. I think a multi use firearm/beanbag gun would be similarly handicapped.

At the end of the day, the officer does the best they can with the tools they have at hand. And I don't think anybody can reasonably expect an officer to risk grievous bodily injury or death to avoid injuring a violent attacker regardless of their mental state.

 

[venomballistics]

multi tasking gear is not always a great idea.
weapons, lethal and less than lethal, should both be separate platforms.
This keeps something simple while nothing else is.

we hate the latest wave of cops seemingly shooting innocents all willy nilly like ... if you believe the same news that still would report a TC Encore to be an assault rifle or a high cap revolver.

These incidents flood the front page larger than life.
the rest of the story, that boils to the surface months later, might make the back page that you'll never read.

The Michal Brown case is the archetype of this phenomena.
day one, the cop cut him down in cold blood.
today you can see vids of the jerk being the complete thug the officer surely described.
A witness lied, the media put no value on truth, and a city burned.

Sure, modern policing may have some flaws.
What those flaws may be cannot be determined from the news we are fed.
What can be determined is where the greater need lies after the full story trickles out.
That need for resolution lies with those falling "victim"

 

[LoboGunLeather]

First of all, adding a conscious decision to make between lethal vs. non-lethal options within the same defensive weapon invites mistakes. Only way something like this could possibly work would be for the equipment itself to have "smart" technology (not presently in existence) that chooses which projectile(s) to deploy.

Secondly, nowhere near 90% of all firearms wounds are fatal. Actual statistics from WW2 showed that about 70% of all gunshot victims survived (while over 90% of all bayonet wounds were fatal). In urban or suburban locations (where the vast majority of Americans now live and work) emergency response and medical facilities are much faster and more efficient than anything available on a battlefield, so I would expect fewer than 30% fatalities from gunshot wounds overall.

Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock could select either "stun" or "kill" settings on their phasers, but had to do so prior to engaging a target, and they could also order force fields to protect against attack. Such technologies exist in fiction, but not yet in reality.

 

[ChattanoogaPhil]

Officer is defending his life.

Think about the caliber debates we have here. I have yet to see anyone recommend a bean bag to defend his life.

I would not carry a multiple switch bean bag gun, nor would I expect an officer of the law or anyone else to. Would you? Heck, I won't even carry a gun with a manual safety for reasons of simplicity.

 

[rwsmith]

Pretty much it.....

A *lot* of these shootings involve mentally ill homeless street people. These people simply don't respond to verbal commands in the manner officers are accustomed to when dealing with normal people. When the officers issue verbal commands in a loud voice, it just seems to encourage these people to resist.

That's pretty much it. I'm not for being 'soft' on people that attack police, blow 'em away for all I care. I'm saying that some people die needlessly pretty much for just causing a disturbance and they aren't always 'cracked up' or whatever, but mentally ill or senile.

For the other posters, I wasn't using strong significant number on fatal wounds, but just saying that a person getting walloped with a beanbag or rubber bullet has a better chance of coming out alive until all misunderstands are cleared up.

Thanks for the input, it looks like my idea was theoretically less lethal than it was in real like. In fact, I haven't heard as much about rubber bullets and beanbags over the last few years.. I'll have to look it up but I don't think they are considered to have a reliable effect. Maybe still good for crowd control but not a close up where somebody is attacking YOU and not a line of policemen.