While speaking to community leaders at a church in Delaware this week, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden suggested that when police are faced with a criminal attacker, they could shoot the person in the leg rather than the heart.
David Knowles reports at Yahoo News:
Biden suggests police could shoot assailants ‘in the leg instead of the heart’Joe Biden said Monday that police under attack in the line of duty should shoot their assailants “in the leg instead of the heart” as a way to avert the killing of civilians.“Instead of standing there and teaching a cop, when there’s an unarmed person coming at them with a knife or something, you shoot them in the leg instead of in the heart is a very different thing. There’s a lot of different things that could change,” Biden said in a meeting with community leaders at Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Del.Biden’s remarks were made as cities across the nation continue to be engulfed in violent protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd, an African-American, in police custody in Minneapolis. Four officers were fired for their role in Floyd’s death, which was captured on video. Former Officer Derek Chauvin, who kneeled on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, was charged Friday with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
An “unarmed” person with a knife?
See the video below:
Dan McLaughlin of National Review explains why this is a bad idea:
This is bad advice that would get people killed. Police do have a variety of tools of non-deadly force at their disposal (tasers, rubber bullets, etc.), although some of those, too, can be deadly in some circumstances. Floyd, after all, was killed by a man’s knee. But anyone who has been trained in police work or the military could tell you: Firing a gun is always potentially deadly force. You shoot for center mass, to kill, or you don’t shoot at all. If you’re not prepared to kill someone, you should not even point a loaded gun at them, much less fire it. If you don’t have grounds to shoot to kill, you don’t have grounds to shoot.There are all kinds of things that can go wrong by trying to shoot to wound, because most people are not expert marksmen, and even expert marksmen do not have the greatest of aim in chaotic circumstances. You can miss, and the person you’re shooting at isn’t stopped. You can miss, and hit and kill an innocent bystander. You can hit someone in an artery, and they bleed to death. You can be thinking “shoot to wound,” but the second radio car responding to the scene rolls out thinking “firefight in progress” and opens both barrels.
Joe Biden has a history of saying dumb things about guns. You may remember his shotgun advice in 2013.
From U.S. News and World Report:
Joe Biden’s Shotgun Advice Could Land Jill Biden in JailVICE PRESIDENT Joe Biden might want to have a talk with his son, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, before he makes another public statement about guns.In a Facebook “chat” Tuesday, the vice president said that he had advised his wife, Jill, to fire a shotgun in the air from their Delaware home’s porch if she was concerned for her safety.”I said, ‘Jill, if there’s ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony here, walk out and put that double-barrel shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house,'” Biden said.”You don’t need an AR-15—it’s harder to aim,” he added, “it’s harder to use, and in fact you don’t need 30 rounds to protect yourself. Buy a shotgun! Buy a shotgun!”
Featured image via YouTube.
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