Another major school shooting today ... Newtown, Conn

No they dont!!
Police officers are trained to aim for "center of mass".
That means they aim for the center of the target, to make certain of a hit.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/bill-clinton-to-democrats-dont-trivialize-gun-culture-86443.html?hp=t1_3#continue

Bill Clinton to Democrats: Don’t trivialize gun culture
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By BYRON TAU | 1/19/13 4:55 PM EST Updated: 1/20/13 3:11 AM EST
Former President Bill Clinton warned a group of top Democratic donors at a private Saturday meeting not to underestimate the passions that gun control stirs among many Americans.

“Do not patronize the passionate supporters of your opponents by looking down your nose at them,” Clinton said.

“A lot of these people live in a world very different from the world lived in by the people proposing these things,” Clinton said. “I know because I come from this world."

Clinton dedicated a substantial portion of his 40-minute address before a joint meeting of the Obama National Finance Committee and a group of business leaders to the issue of guns and gun control, saying that it was a test-case for President Barack Obama’s grass-roots movements. (POLITICO was given a transferable ticket by an invited member of the committee.)

“The way the Obama campaign won Florida, won Ohio, won this election by more than projected was the combination of technology, social media and personal contact,” Clinton said. That’s “the only way that our side will ever be able to even up the votes in the midterms and as these issues come up, really touch people and talk to them about it.”

Obama begins his second term facing an uphill battle on gun control — an emotional, divisive and difficult issue that the cool and pragmatic Obama would usually avoid.

Obama took 23 executive actions this week to curb gun violence, but his key proposals will need a vote from Congress to become law. With a GOP House unlikely to take up any new gun control measures — and even some Democrats expressing wariness — his only recourse is to make his case directly to the public.

Clinton said that Republicans have been struggling in presidential politics since 1992 — noting that 2004 was the only time a Republican has won the popular vote in more than 20 years. But, he said, the party has been successful in energizing its supporters for midterm elections.

“You have the power to really democratize America,” Clinton said. “You can do it on immigration reform, you can do it on these economic issues. You can do it on implementing the health care bill.”

But, Clinton warned, the issue of guns has a special emotional resonance in many rural states — and simply dismissing pro-gun arguments is counterproductive.

(While some polls show that the public by-and-large supports several proposals for increased gun control, Clinton said that it’s not the public support that matters — it’s how strongly people feel about the issue.

“All these polls that you see saying the public is for us on all these issues — they are meaningless if they’re not voting issues,” Clinton

Clinton recalled Al Gore’s 2000 campaign against George W. Bush in Colorado, where a referendum designed to close the so-called gun show loophole shared the ballot with the presidential ticket. Gore publicly backed the proposal, while Bush opposed it.

Though the referendum passed with 70 percent of the vote, Gore lost the state. Clinton said that the reason was because a good chunk of the referendum’s opponents were single-issue voters who automatically rejected Gore as anti-gun.

Clinton said that passing the 1994 federal assault weapons ban “devastated” more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers in the 1994 midterms — and cost then-Speaker of the House Tom Foley (D-Wash.) his job and his seat in Congress.“I’ve had many sleepless nights in the many years since,” Clinton said. One reason? “I never had any sessions with the House members who were vulnerable,” he explained — saying that he had assumed they already knew how to explain their vote for the ban to their constituents.

Clinton also recalled threatening to veto a bill as Arkansas governor that would have prevented the city of Little Rock from instituting an assault weapons ban.

Clinton said that an National Rifle Association lobbyist threatened him over his veto in the state house, saying that the group would cause problems for his upcoming presidential campaign in rural states like Texas.

“Right there in the lobby,” Clinton said. “They thought they could talk to governors that way.

“I knew I was getting older when I didn’t hit him,” Clinton said. Clinton recalls telling the NRA lobbyist, “If that’s the way you feel, you get your gun, I’ll get my gun and I’ll see you in Texas.”

But he said that he understands the culture that permeates a state like Arkansas — where guns are a longstanding part of local culture.

“A lot of these people … all they’ve got is their hunting and their fishing,” he told the Democratic financiers. “Or they’re living in a place where they don’t have much police presence. Or they’ve been listening to this stuff for so long that they believe it all.”

Democratic lawmakers will be defeated if they choose to stand with the president.Clinton closed his remarks with a warning to big Democratic donors that ultimately many “Do not be self-congratulatory about how brave you for being for this” gun control push, he said. “The only brave people are the people who are going to lose their jobs if they vote with you.”

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For foot shooting



Rap

The important difference between the two escapes me.

Shooting for center of mass gives you the best chance of hitting your target, but it is not always a kill shot.
If a cop can see your entire body, he will shoot for the center of your chest, if all he sees is your arm he will shoot for the center of your arm.

That way, if his aim is off a little, he still has the best chance of hitting the target.

M ost cops wont "Take a shot" if all theyve got is a small bit of target.
Center of mass is a kill shot, Im sorry to disgree with you.
The issue isnt "mere survivability", its where most damage can be wrought.
Fortunately, most cops are terrible shots in heated situations.
Wild Bill Hickock wouldnot draw fast, hed stand there, take aim while bullets flew around him, and his shots usually killed. He too was a "center of mass" advocate dont you know.

The situation had gotten far worst since revolves had been replaced with large magazines semi-auto where the police now tend to just full the air with rounds in the old spray and pray manner.

That can be very hard on anyone in the area and if anyone should be limited in magazine size it is the police.

This "terrible shot when in a crisis" problem is by no means limited to cops. Anyone under a lot of stress can get jumpy.

Cops tend to practice shooting a lot...and face crisis situations much more often than the regular gun owner...yet they have problems.

Something to think about.

Cops tend to practice shooting a lot...and face crisis situations much more often than the regular gun owner...yet they have problems.

Something to think about.
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As I stated already on this thread the outdoor range I go to happen to be own by the county and as a result all cops get to use it for free and it is alway full of police officers shooting.

Frankly I had not been all that impressed with the marksmanship from that group compared to others shooters at the range.

Why that should be I do not happen to know or even have a theory concerning.

Might I suggest, to those who wish to know what is going on here, that they take the trouble to read chapters 4 (Belongingness) and 5 (Togetherness) of The Organisation Man by William H. Whyte. (A posh variation of the common White).

The Founding Fathers were primarily exercised with the prevention of Tyranny. What they forgot or had on Ignore, as is the American way, is that Tyranny is the natural order of things. Without Tyranny, seeing as what a bunch of degenerates we all are, the outcome is inevitably muddle, stalemate, confusion and eventual paralysis. Which, of course, suit the Republican temperament because then it is easier for it to exercise its propensity to self-seeking cupidity.

At the poles of Tyranny are Brave New World (a benign Tyranny resting on scientific mental adjustment) and 1984 (a ruthless Tyranny resting on a love of power for power's sake).

Muddle, stalemate, confusion and eventual paralysis lead, as a matter of course, to the necessity for Tyranny as the only alternative to dissolution.

So far the rapidly accelerating efficiency of the industrial arts has glossed over the inefficiencies of increasing muddle, stalemate, confusion and eventual paralysis but that state of affairs is becoming reversed. The efficiency of the industrial arts is reaching limits whilst the inefficiencies of increasing muddle, stalemate, confusion and eventual paralysis are only in their infancy. A Malthusian type calculus.

The NRA and its members are a sort of medieval guild in which a sense of embattlement (Obarmy is after us) and righteousness (the sacred and dogmatic nature of the 2nd) contributes to a sense of belongingness and togetherness which reduces, or is felt to reduce, modern society's alienating and isolating tendencies and its imposition of powerlessness and helplessness which the guild members feel crushed by.

"Take these chains from my heart and set me free" sort of mush.

It's emotional. There is no arguing with it. The assertion is a finality. It is an inability to come to terms with the sort of society necessary to make high-tech weaponry and all the other conveniences the shooters enjoy. Which is to say, idiotic. It is selling at cheap prices explosives to more or less all-comers in significant quantities as if nobody is going to think of extracting the propellant from 10,000 rounds of ammo simply because the NRA hasn't thought of that which it must have done actually.

I hear donuts cause poor marksmanship...but I wouldn't swear to it.

Probably selectivity. Cops are recruited for a number of reasons whereas the non-professional shooters will be pursuing an activity they are good at and which rewards their sense of self-esteem. The average cop is likely to be no better a marksman than the average citizen and the average shooter is likely to be much better. The marksman is at the range to strut his stuff and the cop is at the range to try to improve his chances in a dangerous confrontation which he knows he might well face at some point in his career.

Like with swimming. Cops here are required to be able to swim but they are no better at swimming than the average swimmer. At the swimming training pools the standard of swimming is such that very few cops can match it.

I have to admit, that makes a lot of sense. What's the lesson? Keep your head low and wait for change, better or worse?

as evidenced by the alarming number of rounds that they tend to fire when trying to stop someone.


http://reason.com/blog/2012/05/14/german-police-fired-85-rounds-in-2011-wh



http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/12/13_cleveland_police_officers_w.html

but than again maybe American cops are a bit sadistic:


http://www.katu.com/news/local/Shooting-reported-in-Vancouver-187488191.html

Could be as I had also taken note that the police officers who show up with their own private firearms that they had spend dollars on tend to do better then other officers and I do not think it is due to better firearms.

With 300 million guns in circulation, and increasing, I think hoping for the best is all you have.

the thing I find most interesting is that the A2K liberals present the notion that less guns is the one and only solution to gun violence, but it is not at all clear that their peers, the American people, even considerate it the best let alone only solution. Many do believe that more guns is a better solution.

Liberals need to back up and deal with this argument.

condescending sneering is not dealing with the argument, which is all that I have seen on this anywhere but on fox.

.

The real fear seems to be is that the government will disarmed the good guys and turn them into defenseless victims to armed criminals.

Kind of a criminals protection program run by the government for the benefits and safety of the criminals.

did you notice bill that Obama changed the long held refusal of the government to fund science looking at gun violence which he blamed on NRA political power? do you also remember me saying that for a long time the feminists were successful in keeping science away from sexual power issues through the use of political power? firefly and others berated me for allegedly spouting nonsense.... I think that earned me a few "guy in the tin foil hat" pics