The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - Distances involved in shooting instances by LAPD, etc.

Brian Pfleuger · February 7, 2014, 10:22 AM

I'd have to disagree, John. I really can't see any meaningful connection. This table is just a bunch of numbers so we don't really know anything about the specifics. I stop and consider as many LE shootings as I can remember, from here, YouTube, news or my LE friends and I honestly can't think of a single one that reasonably mirrors what I would expect to see happen in the civilian world.

As an example, we had an incident near here a year or two back with a guy shooting into the air, LE responded, couldn't get him out of his truck verbally, they barricaded and took cover, he eventually fired two rounds at an officer (who I think was trying to close and talk) and about 10 officers responded with something like 127 rounds in under 2 seconds. That seems to be a very typical LE encounter and would quite obviously be a very, very atypical civilian encounter.

Just counting shots fired per incident, I see no reasonable correlation.
Looking at the NRA Armed Citizen Analysis, every stat is almost completely backwards from this report. Very few shots fired (2, mean and median) and distances were "...short but beyond touching..." and "... it appears that most defenders will make the shoot decision shortly before the criminal comes within arm's length."

It appears to me that LE is much more likely to be outside, much more likely to be shooting at a barricaded/covered/hidden (or even fleeing) opponent, likely to fire far more shots and much more likely to be well beyond contact range.

Just the fact that 40% of LE shooting were beyond 30ft tells me it doesn't apply to civilians. What are the odds of scenarios that a civilian would be shooting beyond 10 yards? Sure, it's happened, but I'd bet the odds are closer to 4% than 40 and probably lower than 4.

February 7, 2014, 10:22 AM	#28
Brian Pfleuger Moderator Emeritus Join Date: June 25, 2008 Location: Austin, CO Posts: 19,578	Distances involved in shooting instances by LAPD, etc. I'd have to disagree, John. I really can't see any meaningful connection. This table is just a bunch of numbers so we don't really know anything about the specifics. I stop and consider as many LE shootings as I can remember, from here, YouTube, news or my LE friends and I honestly can't think of a single one that reasonably mirrors what I would expect to see happen in the civilian world. As an example, we had an incident near here a year or two back with a guy shooting into the air, LE responded, couldn't get him out of his truck verbally, they barricaded and took cover, he eventually fired two rounds at an officer (who I think was trying to close and talk) and about 10 officers responded with something like 127 rounds in under 2 seconds. That seems to be a very typical LE encounter and would quite obviously be a very, very atypical civilian encounter. Just counting shots fired per incident, I see no reasonable correlation. Looking at the NRA Armed Citizen Analysis, every stat is almost completely backwards from this report. Very few shots fired (2, mean and median) and distances were "...short but beyond touching..." and "... it appears that most defenders will make the shoot decision shortly before the criminal comes within arm's length." It appears to me that LE is much more likely to be outside, much more likely to be shooting at a barricaded/covered/hidden (or even fleeing) opponent, likely to fire far more shots and much more likely to be well beyond contact range. Just the fact that 40% of LE shooting were beyond 30ft tells me it doesn't apply to civilians. What are the odds of scenarios that a civilian would be shooting beyond 10 yards? Sure, it's happened, but I'd bet the odds are closer to 4% than 40 and probably lower than 4.