21–24 of 24 posts
"As officers closed in, the man pointed a handgun in the direction of at least one of the officers; one or more of the officers opened fire, killing the man, the police said." Why "one or more"? Is this unknown to the police or do the police just not report such things to the press?
Last summer, a guy held up a pharmacy near where I was living in Somerville and dropped the (lojack'ed) containers in our garbage.
And ... ? What sort of response did this prompt?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"one" implies that the officer who fired the deadly shot can be easily determined.
Some have suggested all ammo sold should be traceable to the buyer. If that's a good idea, perhaps we could start with the much-smaller task tracking all ammo issued to law enforcement. (A chemical-tagging mechanism like SelectDNA could help identify kill-shots even when the bullet passes through the victim or is otherwise unrecoverable.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SelectaDNA
Actually, the smokeless powder in handgun ammo pretty much doesn't finish burning up by the time the bullet exits, resulting in a muzzle flash problem at nighttime, and that burning powder ought to do a good job of burning up any chemical taggant. It's probably telling the gun grabbers have never seriously suggested this (vs. tagging powder or brass).
Then there's the traceability problem. Lots of ammo is bought in bulk, especially by police departments, it would cost vastly more to get customized ammo for each officer, be a total nightmare to try to get it to designated officers and keep it isolated to them. You can't realistically demand an officer never hand a spare magazine to another, especially in a firefight, and ammo is generally a fungible item.
It would never work in a civilian context, it would be vastly more expensive as noted above, we'd boycott any manufacturer who tried such a stunt, and since in the US we buy the vast majority of ammo it would stick.
Also note US civilian ammo production for all types is above 12 billion rounds per year, and I've read rimfire ammo (e.g. .22 LR, not considered by almost everyone as suitable for self-defense) is only 3-4 billion of that. Those numbers strongly suggest taggant approaches are impractical.
How long until people start using portable RF detectors/sweepers? How long until people use these devices to manipulate police officers into shooting who they want?
Hopefully someone innocent wouldn't aim a handgun at a police officer.