Alternative Ballistics – When a warning shot may help | Eastern North Carolina Now

   Just to prove I am not a "shoot em all and let God sort it out" type of neanderthal, I found this a very interesting alternative to  shoot first ask questions later.  I would be interested out see what a police on the street think, since it is there life at stake as well. BT   

   In many of the situations between police and suspects there is a time frame that allows the officer to access the situation and determine the level of force required to subdue or arrest the suspect.  In other situations, the escalation is automatic required immediate action to protect both the police and any bystanders.  There is also a third situation, that escalates not immediately but gradually into a confrontation. This post covers a possible alternative to deadly force.

   When there is time to react to a situation with something less than deadly force, here is a possible alternative to engaging a non-life threatening encounter.  This is not a toy but a product that offers a warning shot, if you will.

   The idea of a warning shot is not within the normal training routine of police or military.  Standard procedure is that when police draw a weapon the first shot should be deadly to the target. Only in Hollywood is there  a shoot to wound scene. That is particularly true when the opponent is armed and ready to shoot back at the police. The fact that a police officer feels the need to draw his weapon presupposes that his life is in mortal danger.  Most hardened criminals do not react to the threat of a weapon pointed at them.  If the situation has escalated to that level, the adrenaline and emotion has overtaken their reason.

   Nevertheless, on occasion, there may be room for other than deadly force for arresting a potential assailant.  Here is a novel idea that needs to be evaluated and debated before it is adopted.  It is a device that can be quickly installed on a pistol and provide a first shot deterrent in the event of a confrontation.

   My biggest fear about this device is the fact that another charge of brutality against the police would result because they did NOT USE this in an encounter.  It is so easy to second-guess a police officer when we have the benefit of hindsight and possibly video and no skin in the game. Increasingly we are adding a level of back seat driving to ever encounter between the police and the public. One solution is body cameras that record the incident from the police perspective.  It is increasingly clear that videos will be available of almost any encounter.  It is also clear that they can be selective in their release or edited to present a point of view that does not represent the actual facts. Eye witness accounts are so biased in many incidents that they are no longer reliable.  We may have long since passed the point where the media makes the presumption that the police acted appropriately.  

Watch this Video and decide for yourself if it provides an alternative to deadly force.  

   Here is the website of the company with additional information. Alternative Ballistics