Please Stop Telling Cops to
Shoot Suspects in the Leg

This advice, coming from someone that probably watched too many Old Westerns, where the good guy always shot the gun out of the bad guys hand... Center of Mass, folks. Leave the fancy shooting to television and video games.

Anyone who says that policemen should shoot perps in the leg has never shot a handgun, under stress or otherwise.

Shoot a lion in the leg and he can still gore you to death. Shoot a man with a knife in the leg and he can still stab you to death. Stupid Joe Biden.

A perp can bleed out just as easily with a shot to the leg.

But not before he kills you.

Once you engage the beast - expect consequences. Among them - a fatal shot.

So why doesn’t the perp shoot the victim in the leg?

Well, and bullets don’t always hit where you think you’re aiming, especially at a moving target. If you’re aiming at the legs you may well hit the “privates” area!

My SOP is to NOT do anything requiring an officer to so much as think he needs to punch me in the face, let alone point a firearm at me!!!

Shooting a perp in the leg to stop his aggression (instead of targeting his center-of-mass, or COM) is bogus because: 1. In the heat of a confrontation, and having already pulled his gun, a LEO will never have the time or the calm and rational state of mind to choose between multiple aiming alternatives, or to make a second decision to switch between them as escalation accelerates (let's see, shoot the ankle, calf, thigh, knife or gun, left arm, right arm or COM?). Conflicts often accelerate so fast that training supersedes decision-making...and if LEO is trained to aim for COM, he won't have to take the time to evaluate alternatives. 2. the chance of actually hitting a rapidly moving leg, at its much thinner profile, is perhaps only half that of hitting his COM. IOW, the chance of missing the target altogether are much higher. 3. the chance of that shot disabling the leg, rather than just passing thru-n-thru, is perhaps only 1/4 that of disabling via a COM shot. IOW, the perp will likely just keep on coming. Drug-infused perps, and even adrenaline charged LEOs or soldiers, often don't realize they've been shot with a thru-n-thru until after the conflict is over. 4. based on those probabilities, the chance of disabling a perp by shooting him in the leg is merely 1/8th the chance of COM. That is an easy choice. 5. as noted by other posters, such finely tuned accuracy may work for Hollywood, but is radically compromised in real life by stress, fear, ballistics, etc. IOW, it simply won't work. Even COM shots, which often drop a perp on the first shot in Hollywood, often do not do so in real life conflicts. 6. somehow we've gotten our priorities reversed...having already cost the govt many years of training and equipping, since the perps outnumber the LEOs by many times over, since the LEO's primary goal is to protect the public from the perps, and since the perp chose to perpetrate, the lives of the LEO and the nearby collateral public is worth far more than the life of the perp in any given confrontation, and it is therefore the life of the LEO that is the priority...the perp is the expendable party in the conflict, not the LEO!

Oops...here's Point #7 to add to previous list: 7. If the perp has a gun, and a shot to his leg disables his ability to walk, he may very well still be able to return fire with his gun...which means his threat was not neutralized.

Even in the old westerns, Marshall Dillon knew that you aim for the chest. And he never missed, he could shoot a bullet through a key hole and have it tap its victim on the shoulder before killing the guy.

Talk about dumb recommendations. That's not considering the lawsuits that will invariable be filed in civil court that taxpayers get to pay for. If someone's coming at you (police or otherwise) with a weapon, aim center mass and make sure they're DRT - dead right there.

Just one example....the church shooter that was stopped by the church security guy, after the shooter had killed two church members - was shooting over the pews and people, and the stupid 'leg shot' was impossible, so he chose the instant incapacitation of the head shot. This is a VERY difficult shot under those conditions, (about 20 yards) few can make it. I have done it many times in competition, but also missed it at least a few times, too. Today, not practicing 10,000 rounds per year like I used to - I'm not sure that I could make it with certainty under that kind of stress. I can tell you, very, very few police officers could make that head shot, very few handgun shooters. And IMO, the stupid 'leg shot' is just as difficult, and frequently not available due to obstructions. Only fools advocate "leg shots". And a large number of leg wounds will be fatal, too, because of the very large femoral artery, which if severed by a bullet will cause death in around one minute without IMMEDIATE skilled trauma treatment.

Lt. Col. Kels has far more to say about this than just the disabling/killing of the target. But there’s a more important issue at stake than understanding how guns work or the physiological response to violent encounters. As a matter of law, discharging a firearm is the police’s absolute last resort. Employing a lethal weapon constitutes the use of deadly force, irrespective of outcome or intent. The only valid reason to do so is when officers reasonably believe there is imminent danger of serious physical injury or death. Despite Hollywood depictions to the contrary, tactics such as warning shots, vehicle disabling fire, and targeting fleeing subjects who pose no active threat are not an ordinary part of law enforcement’s repertoire. Recommend reading the article.

If a rapist broke into your house to do harm to your wife/daughter, and she shot him dead dead dead, would any husband or father rebuke her & say, " Honey, why didn't you just shoot him in the leg?!!?"

Re #14: Here's Powerline's post from last December 29 https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/12/dont-mess-with-texas.php about the church shooting, including a video with audio from across the sanctuary. The shooter who had in recent days been hanging around the church eating church food wanted church money, something the church wasn't willing to give him. The idiot came in with a 12 gauge, loaded with alternating buckshot and 1 ounce slugs plus plenty more shotshells, under his coat. If Jack Wilson, head of church security and a range owner who spent a lot of time practicing, hadn't immediately shot the bad guy in the head, there's no telling how many churchgoers he might have killed. Incidentally, Wilson's pistol was a Sig Sauer P229 in .357 SIG, 125 grain jacketed hollowpoint traveling at slightly over 1400 fps. (My favorite pistol cartridge, too! Blasty, loud, flat shooting, what's not to like?) The bad guy took a head shot from Wilson at about 50 feet distance, and never knew what had just hit him. After the 10mm, the .357 SIG is the second most powerful semiauto cartridge, more powerful than .(in descending order) 40 S&W, .45ACP, 9x19mm (9mm), and .380 (9x17mm). Yes, I've seen a semiautomatic Desert Eagle in .50 caliber, but that's no carry pistol or self defense gun. The 10mm is the biggest within reason, and the .357 SIG is a slightly shortened 10mm, necked down to a 9mm bullet. (.357 SIG is not a necked down .40 S&W. The empty SIG case is a bit longer than the forty. Not as powerful as a full ten, but pretty damn good.

Trying to shoot a charging violent criminal in the leg would be a much more challenging shot than a center body mass shot, and might not even slow down the attacker, defeating the purpose for the defensive firearm in the first place. The object of using a firearm in self defense is to stop the attacker, not to kill him. If he dies after I shoot him in the chest, that's his bad luck, but I was just trying to stop him expeditiously, instantly, before he killed or maimed me. Once he's down, I will disarm him and call the police to come take him away. If I shoot him in the head after he's down, disarmed, and helpless, that would make me a murderer. So I won't deliver the coup de grace unless he gets a second wind and launches another potentially lethal attack against me, even with a slug in his thorax. (That's been done plenty of times before. Some perps are nearly indestructible, particularly when they're full of powerful drugs.) If he did manage one last spasm toward me, I'd have to shoot the SOB in the head. One attack on me inside my living room he might survive. A second attack, he wouldn't. Most anti-gun people think guns' primary purpose is killing. For sane and moral people, that's not true. It's the use of deadly force against oncoming deadly force, the raison d'être of the Second Amendment. No moral person wants to hurt--let alone kill--any other human being. Saving one's life against mortal attack, however, is the main purpose of bearing arms.

After Biden telling law enforcement to only shoot criminal perpetrators in the leg, the only cops that are supporting Joseph Biden are the Keystone Kops!

There certainly are LEOs in this country and other highly specialized federal agents trained in aircraft assault and/or hostage rescue that can make a moving leg shot, and even a knee cap shot; however, the amount of training and the volume of ammo required for that level of proficiency is not available to 99.9 percent of municipal police departments. 100,000 rounds of ammo and three days/week training is just a start towards the minimum proficiency required for a dedicated few within those highly specialized units. Such units also require full-time professional armors with huge spare parts inventories to keep the firearms in serviceable condition. With the democrats moving to reduce funding or outright defund police, they should keep very quiet about requiring leg shots when the use of deadly force is required. Biden's calls for leg shots demonstrates profound ignorance but make no mistake, we have some folks within the US and a few other countries who can routinely make such a shot, even under fire; however, the cost/benefit ratio is not there for the 99.9 percent of big city police departments where their officers are likely to face aggressive criminals on a more routine basis. It is not uncommon for large metro police officers to receive only a handful of rounds for their annual qualifications and nothing available for routine training, with weapons of questionable reliability and accuracy.

It's actually two to the chest and one to the head!

Excellent points, #15. If you are shooting to incapacitate, this provides evidence that you didn't judge at that time that deadly force was necessary. Yet, a gunshot anywhere is potentially, even likely, deadly force. So, in the court aftermath, how do you pass the "reasonable man test" that you were in fear of bodily injury or death, but not enough to do anything but shoot the person in the leg? IMO, a non-center of mass shot is proof that you didn't feel that deadly force was justified...so you have destroyed your self-defense case, all by yourself. You have proven that you were not in fear for your life. Never shoot except an intended fatal shot, usually center of mass, but occasionally, a head shot may be required, as in a hostage situation. TV and movie cop epics often show hostage standoffs with handguns at 10 yds or so, good guy with the gun gun up and aimed,but the 'hero' usually lays down his gun.....if it was my wife, I'd confidently take the shot. At that range, under those deliberate conditions, I can make that shot with certainty.