In the news

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/21/police-release-video-of-kajieme-powell-shooting-in-st-louis
Includes a link to a video of the most recent shooting. It's horrible, though not close enough to be gory, but worth watching because it's beyond belief. Shooting to kill has become the first option. 12 seconds after arriving, they kill him.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/20/james-foley-daily-horrors-internet-think-clicking-beheading

relates to your point about double standards in the media.

In fairness, the guy's walking towards the cops with a knife, repeatedly saying 'Shoot me, shoot me, motherfucking shoot me' after they'd asked him several times to drop the knife.

Fuck knows what I'd do in that situation, but I'd be awfully wary of getting too close to him.

...shoot him in the leg, possibly?

But then he might bite if you got too close.

They have tasers. Or, of course, they could just remove themselves from the scene as he wasn't as agitated until they turned up.

Shooting him is certainly the easiest option though.

Whitebait - well, let's see, they have guns, there are two of them, they have a very large car they can get in to. What a terrifying situation for trained police officers. You're right, shoot him 10 times. After all, he literally asked for it.

Powell's death has been deemed "suicide by cop".

they are taught to shoot to stop, i.e. into the chest. Risk of missing an limb or hitting a limb not stopping them is probably considered too great.

The shots are so brutally quick that I can't see how they could suggest they were shooting to stop and not shooting to kill.

What I said was that I'd be wary of getting too close to him, not that what they did was right. I'm not a policeman. I also pointed out what the Guardian article fails to mention: the fact that he's literally asking to be shot whilst walking towards police with a knife.

I don't think two is really an appropriate number to detain someone with a knife. If you're not allowed to use/don't have access to a gun it can turn out like this
.

They can't just get back in their car and bugger off. How can they know if that will actually calm the situation? Funnily enough they don't know that he was calmer before they arrived because they weren't there then. They also don't know he'll calm down once they leave or whether he'll be a risk to the bunch of people standing around watching.

Shit situation all round really, you'd hope a taser would work but the distance they're at (and they mention his hoodie potentially negating the effects of the taser in the article) you wouldn't want to find out it was ineffective. Doubt you'd get a second chance to stop him.

The fluoride or chemtrails will still get you.

Meanwhile thousands upon thousands of companies leave lights, aircon, heating, machinery running using far more energy than a once-a-week vac.

And climate change... did somebody says "cars".

#FFS

Reading the news really is a depressing prospect.

My parents got in with the wrong crowd at church on abortion views has caused huge family rifts since. About 10 years ago my aunt was in hospital her and my mum had a close sister moment and my aunt mentioned an abortion she had 28 years ago which made them on edge a bit but still talking. Then 2 years after that my cousin had an abortion as doctors said scans showed the skull hadn't formed and so the baby would be born in agonising pain for all of the few minutes/hours they could fight to keep them alive and/or pressing on the brain as they are pushed out kills them dead. Aunt+Uncle said to my cousin "we support you whatever" as any parent does, my parents then spoke to a hardliner anti abortion priest for guidance who branded all my aunts side of the family murders/supported murder ect and convinced my parents they won't get into heaven or whatever unless they shun them. For the first 5 years after my parents didn't even send them christmas cards and my aunt always made the effort even if it was ignored. In the last 2 years they started talking again barely.

I can only imagine in bits of Ireland it's like that but instead of 2 people it's the entire village so you can't drink at your local pub anymore and the village/church hall with all it's book clubs and stuff is off limits, your doctor isn't interested/won't treat you, ever order takeaway it's spat in, basically every which way possible people will be shit towards you.

My immediate though was- if you are going to limit something what about engine displacement for cars? I still wouldn't agree with the method but the results would be far more beneficial.

They're way ahead of you- small capacity forced induction motors are an established trend now.

It's gottta be another publicity stunt or maybe just cover for sneaking through some actually harmful new laws..

@salmonchild
Then we will just build cars with a regular engine and an electric one and call them hybrids. They will weigh more and give out less harmful gasses when driven but in production and scrapping the waste they will be even worse muhahahhahaha

Hence 1.6 litre V6 with turbo and regenerative braking being the current spec for F1 and (iirc) the World Endurance Championship.

Just sad. Genuinely sad.

@Dammit

Trend vs Legal restriction

Shooting in the torso, at the range, with that calibre of bullet, will kill. The difference between shooting to stop or shooting to kill is entirely moot.

Give a man a hammer, and he will hit fish with a hammer all day. Or something.

Death by hammer is gruesome, even for fish.

It's actually very merciful, and anyway it would be both impossible and against peoples constitutional rights to ban fish-hammers

Someone in Ireland has come back from Sierra Leone and died suddenly