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I'm not an expert in the whole police or sas side of things but having been in a position where I was trained to shoot people we were always told to aim for the 'center of mass' i.e. the middle of the body. Obviously this presents the largest area to target but it is also the part of the body that holds the majority of vital organs. There was never a shoot to kill v shoot to disable differentiation... is you presented arms and pulled the trigger the aim was always to kill. I think I am right in saying that the 'shoot to kill' moniker is a Hollywood bastardization of a legal term when someone shoots someone with the aim of killing them but wounds them instead, still attempted murder.
Head shots in a close quarters environment when one suspects a person to be wearing a suicide vest is another consideration all together and something that is up to the interpretation of the firearms handler at a particular scene.
Gndlf-
Police officers "shoot to stop" which at ten or more metres is single carefully aimed shots at the chest. If the threat remains then headshots will be necessary to stop the threat. At seven metres and less the threat is engaged with two shots using sense of direction ie. both eyes open not using the sights of the gun. If headshots are used where they are not required it is quite literally overkill and unless there was a genuine belief that they were necessary to stop the threat. Sect 3 Criminal Law Act 1967, Common Law, Sect 117 PACE 1984 and Article 2 ECHR Human Rights Act 1998 make for good bedtime reading.
Constable_Savage
So I'm a bit confused about the huge outcry over Corbyn stating that he'd prefer 'shoot to kill' not to be used as a policy, given that doing so isn't in any way policy at the moment, and it seems unlikely to become it.
My understanding of current policy is that it is 'shoot to disable' which in some cases may end up as kill, and that the decision is made by the officer on the ground, which is then subject to the courts to ensure that the decision was correct (whether or not you think the courts/police investigate this correctly is a separate matter from the policy intent).
Given that the 'double tap' technique taught to police and special forces is aimed at disabling, not killing, and even Kratos (under which the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes was authorised) was/is aimed at disabling the threat, rather than necessecarilly killing.
Could it be that MPs don't actually understand the current set of engagement rules, and are thus encouraging the new media to make a huge fuss out of nothing?