APD Shot and killed buddy's dog

[VMI77]

I can't help but think that if the dog had not been there to "take a bullet" we might be talking about a dead man instead of a dead dog.

Anything is possible, but I think that is a stretch. How often do LEO draw their weapons? How often do citizens draw to defend themselves and how few are actually shot?

Anygunanywhere

Supposedly, about 11% of those shot by LEO's are shot by mistake.....and the corresponding number for CHL's is something like 3%.

[speedsix]

...I assume you mean people...that's not surprising, considering how often LEOs point their guns at humans...and how seldom CHLs do...
I sincerely believe that TV and movies have programmed/desensitized officers to pull and point far more often than we ever did in the 70s...it was FAR more common to see an officer approach a suspect with his hand on his holstered weapon rather than to see him with it out and pointed...unless there was a weapon or violence present...it just wasn't done the way it is today...

[nyj]

No one is trying to change any laws. The goal is to better APD's and other agencies policies in dealing with other people's animals.

[VMI77]

...I assume you mean people...that's not surprising, considering how often LEOs point their guns at humans...and how seldom CHLs do...
I sincerely believe that TV and movies have programmed/desensitized officers to pull and point far more often than we ever did in the 70s...it was FAR more common to see an officer approach a suspect with his hand on his holstered weapon rather than to see him with it out and pointed...unless there was a weapon or violence present...it just wasn't done the way it is today...

Yes, people. I agree about TV and movies....and I'd go further....TV is probably the single most destructive influence in the world, and from whence it was once maybe a little silly and superficial, it has become depraved, morally and intellectually degrading, and insidious.

[Charles L. Cotton]

No one is trying to change any laws. The goal is to better APD's and other agencies policies in dealing with other people's animals.

This is very good news. Beware getting too close to so-called animal rights groups. They are rabid anti-gun, anti-hunting, anti-pet-ownership and they would love to use this shooting as a poster child for all sorts of legislative mischief.

Chas.

[matriculated]

They are rabid anti-gun, anti-hunting, anti-pet-ownership and they would love to use this shooting as a poster child for all sorts of legislative mischief. Chas.

This was my entire point about a certain other shooting that shall remain unnamed. This is, unfortunately, often how changes in law happen in this country. There is an unfortunate event and then in response to that event legislatures buckle to pressure to do something, and the something usually ends up being counter-productive. In my view, any law named after a victim is usually a bad idea. Not always, but usually.

[Excaliber]

I can't help but think that if the dog had not been there to "take a bullet" we might be talking about a dead man instead of a dead dog.

Anything is possible, but I think that is a stretch. How often do LEO draw their weapons? How often do citizens draw to defend themselves and how few are actually shot?

Anygunanywhere

Supposedly, about 11% of those shot by LEO's are shot by mistake.....and the corresponding number for CHL's is something like 3%.

That's a most interesting statistic that I am not familiar with, although I am very familiar with its subject.

Please provide the source so it can be fact checked.

[Excaliber]

I can't help but think that if the dog had not been there to "take a bullet" we might be talking about a dead man instead of a dead dog.

Anything is possible, but I think that is a stretch. How often do LEO draw their weapons? How often do citizens draw to defend themselves and how few are actually shot?

Anygunanywhere

Supposedly, about 11% of those shot by LEO's are shot by mistake.....and the corresponding number for CHL's is something like 3%.

That's a most interesting statistic that I am not familiar with, although I am very familiar with its subject.

Please provide the source so it can be fact checked.

Still waiting patiently..........

[Excaliber]

Well, I see why no one has been able to point me to the source of the assertion that 11% of police shootings involve an innocent victim while only 3% of citizen shootings do the same. I had to look high and low to find it.

Here's where it apparently comes from:

It is cited in Gun Facts 6.0 . The "fact" appears on page 28 where it says:

"Fact: 11% of police shootings kill an innocent person - about 2% of civilian shootings kill an innocent person."

The footnote references a paper titled Shall Issue: The New Wave of Concealed Handgun Permit Laws by Clayton Cramer and David Kopel. That paper was published in 1994. On page 41 it says:

Another study examined newspaper reports of gun incidents in Missouri, involving police or civilians. In this study, civilians were successful in wounding, driving off, capturing criminals 83% of the time, compared with a 68% success rate for the police. Civilians intervening in crime were slightly less likely to be wounded than were police. Only 2% of shootings by civilians, but 11% of shootings by police, involved an innocent person mistakenly thought to be a criminal.

The short version is that this statistic, which would be truly startling if it were a national figure and true today, actually came from a single study in a single state at least 18 years ago. It was never true nationally, and a lot of things have changed in the 18 intervening years.

This is a good illustration of why it is important to provide source references when we cite statistics in our posts. It lets others evaluate where the data comes from and determine if it is of any use or not. Posting statistics without sources so has a high potential for misleading others, which I'm sure no one on this Forum would deliberately do.

[Keith B]

Well, I see why no one has been able to point me to the source of the assertion that 11% of police shootings involve an innocent victim while only 3% of citizen shootings do the same. I had to look high and low to find it.

Here's where it apparently comes from:

It is cited in Gun Facts 6.0 . The "fact" appears on page 28 where it says:

"Fact: 11% of police shootings kill an innocent person - about 2% of civilian shootings kill an innocent person."

The footnote references a paper titled Shall Issue: The New Wave of Concealed Handgun Permit Laws by Clayton Cramer and David Kopel. That paper was published in 1994. On page 41 it says:

Another study examined newspaper reports of gun incidents in Missouri, involving police or civilians. In this study, civilians were successful in wounding, driving off, capturing criminals 83% of the time, compared with a 68% success rate for the police. Civilians intervening in crime were slightly less likely to be wounded than were police. Only 2% of shootings by civilians, but 11% of shootings by police, involved an innocent person mistakenly thought to be a criminal.

The short version is that this statistic, which would be truly startling if it were a national figure and true today, actually came from a single study in a single state at least 18 years ago. It was never true nationally, and a lot of things have changed in the 18 intervening years.

This is a good illustration of why it is important to provide source references when we cite statistics in our posts. It lets others evaluate where the data comes from and determine if it is of any use or not. Posting statistics without sources so has a high potential for misleading others, which I'm sure no one on this Forum would deliberately do.

What is even more enlightening is that Missouri didn't even have a concealed handgun license until 2005.

I really question the data for that study to begin with as I had lived in that state for the previous 34 years to 1994, was a LEO for four of those, and only once heard of someone in my home town or the other one I lived in for 12 years, stopping a robbery in progress by using a gun. And if you add in the fact that most civilians would be dealing with home break-in's, then the chances that they stopped a burglar with a gun would pretty well guarantee they were shooting the right person.

[Excaliber]

This is a good illustration of why it is important to provide source references when we cite statistics in our posts. It lets others evaluate where the data comes from and determine if it is of any use or not. Posting statistics without sources so has a high potential for misleading others, which I'm sure no one on this Forum would deliberately do.

You're no fun.

You're not the first to make that observation, and you probably won't be the last.....

[sjfcontrol]

Well, I see why no one has been able to point me to the source of the assertion that 11% of police shootings involve an innocent victim while only 3% of citizen shootings do the same. I had to look high and low to find it.

Here's where it apparently comes from:

It is cited in Gun Facts 6.0 . The "fact" appears on page 28 where it says:

"Fact: 11% of police shootings kill an innocent person - about 2% of civilian shootings kill an innocent person."

The footnote references a paper titled Shall Issue: The New Wave of Concealed Handgun Permit Laws by Clayton Cramer and David Kopel. That paper was published in 1994. On page 41 it says:

Another study examined newspaper reports of gun incidents in Missouri, involving police or civilians. In this study, civilians were successful in wounding, driving off, capturing criminals 83% of the time, compared with a 68% success rate for the police. Civilians intervening in crime were slightly less likely to be wounded than were police. Only 2% of shootings by civilians, but 11% of shootings by police, involved an innocent person mistakenly thought to be a criminal.

The short version is that this statistic, which would be truly startling if it were a national figure and true today, actually came from a single study in a single state at least 18 years ago. It was never true nationally, and a lot of things have changed in the 18 intervening years.

This is a good illustration of why it is important to provide source references when we cite statistics in our posts. It lets others evaluate where the data comes from and determine if it is of any use or not. Posting statistics without sources so has a high potential for misleading others, which I'm sure no one on this Forum would deliberately do.

Don't you know that 72% of all statistics are made up on the spot?

[speedsix]

...and the other 43% come from between the lines...

[jimlongley]

Well, I see why no one has been able to point me to the source of the assertion that 11% of police shootings involve an innocent victim while only 3% of citizen shootings do the same. I had to look high and low to find it.

Here's where it apparently comes from:

It is cited in Gun Facts 6.0 . The "fact" appears on page 28 where it says:

"Fact: 11% of police shootings kill an innocent person - about 2% of civilian shootings kill an innocent person."

The footnote references a paper titled Shall Issue: The New Wave of Concealed Handgun Permit Laws by Clayton Cramer and David Kopel. That paper was published in 1994. On page 41 it says:

Another study examined newspaper reports of gun incidents in Missouri, involving police or civilians. In this study, civilians were successful in wounding, driving off, capturing criminals 83% of the time, compared with a 68% success rate for the police. Civilians intervening in crime were slightly less likely to be wounded than were police. Only 2% of shootings by civilians, but 11% of shootings by police, involved an innocent person mistakenly thought to be a criminal.

The short version is that this statistic, which would be truly startling if it were a national figure and true today, actually came from a single study in a single state at least 18 years ago. It was never true nationally, and a lot of things have changed in the 18 intervening years.

This is a good illustration of why it is important to provide source references when we cite statistics in our posts. It lets others evaluate where the data comes from and determine if it is of any use or not. Posting statistics without sources so has a high potential for misleading others, which I'm sure no one on this Forum would deliberately do.

Don't you know that 72% of all statistics are made up on the spot?

And that 56% of those are wrong.