I grew up on cowboy Westerns, “The Lone Ranger,” “The Cisco Kid,” “Gunsmoke,” “Wyatt Earp,” “Paladin,” “Maverick,” in many ways there seemed to be only one immutable law of the old West. Never shoot anyone in the back, that was a worse sin than lynching. The goodies could shoot a gun out of the baddies hand. In the cowboy movies, almost everyone had a six shooter, and we kept track of how many they had left. In contemporary action movies it’s hard, was that a .357 with 5, a 1911 with 8, or a nine-millimeter with 17 or more. Now in the movies everyone has automatic weapons that seem to never run out, even if it’s World War II. The old .45 Tommy Gun of prohibition gangster movies had a 100 round ammunition and a firing rate of up to 1,300 a minute! No one but the mafia could afford that much ammo. It did not often hit where it was aimed, but knocked down anything it hit. Even in the prohibition movies shooting in the back was disgraceful, but the FBI did it.
In real life, if someone is shot by police, it’s often in the back, even if they are fleeing from nothing but a traffic stop or on the ground, rarely fleeing felony scene, Rayshard Brooks was running home after a traffic stop, the police had his car and wallet. It’s often someone on the ground like Waltki Williams having already been shot several times, tased or otherwise incapacitated. Nine millimeters often go clear through, like a rifle, but may do more tissue damage.
It is a tough decision to shoot someone or in police report jargon “discharge your service sidearm.” Some times there is no choice. It seems American police were less trigger happy when they had only six shooters. The fewer rounds you have available the more likely you are to make every shot count. On Bunker Hill, the famous order was “Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.” Because defending close up with a muzzle loader you are unlikely to get another shot. In the 19th century, generals worried about soldiers wasting ammunition and resisted anything but single shot firearms for ordinary soldiers. Even as late as the Korean War, there was one automatic rifle per squad and semiautomatic M1s with eight rounds for the rest.
Sniper’s mantra is one shot, one kill. That means only shooting when you are sure of the target and your ability to hit only the target. Some police shootings look much like the spray and pray of terrorists. Decedents with dozens of wounds inflicted by police are too common. Twenty-six bullets were recovered from Jayland Walker’s body, there were 41 entry wounds.
We all mourn mass shootings that have become more common with the availability of semi-automatic weapons, often mislabeled assault rifles, although not as defined by the U.S. Army. Those events are notably tragic. They need to be prevented, but as with most complex issues how to accomplish that is not simple.
Another concern is the number of killings by police. Each year we experience about 40,000 gunshot deaths. About the same number as traffic fatalities. Suicide accounts for 60%, and many who commit suicide might find another way, there are many, and if they don’t succeed, they often try until they do.
Unintentional firearm deaths are 3% and therefore probably preventable with simple safety measures, like keeping guns out of reach of children or locked. In pioneer days it meant hanging them high over the fireplace. Mass shootings though always too many, only account for 0.2% of gun fatalities.
Fatal police shootings, 1,000 a year or about 2.5%, 10 times as many as by mass shooters, I’m sure many of those were justified, unavoidable, but some, too many, are questionable. There is a question about the accuracy of all statistics, but especially police shootings, coroners and medical examiners who have to work with police regularly may not be unbiased.
Then there was Uvalde. Enough police firepower (376 armed officers) to overthrow a small country (or our Jan. 6) and no plan, no action for 75 minutes. We definitely need to spend more on police training.
Ken Obenski is a forensic engineer, now safety and freedom advocate in South Kona. He writes a biweekly column for West Hawaii Today. Send feedback to obenskik@gmail.com