Posted February 8, 2016 3:19 pm by Comments

By Bob Owens

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When a suspect is killed via gunfire in the commission of a crime by law enforcement officers or “regular Joe” citizens, we often here the same question repeated by the deceased suspect’s family members and friends.

“Why didn’t they just shoot him in the leg?”

We heard people ask this question in the Michael Brown shooting, the death of Tamir Rice, and more recently in the death of Robert “LaVoy” Finicum.

Occasionally we’ll hear a slight variation of that, asking why the suspect wasn’t shot in the arm, but they’re both ways of asking police to shoot at the extremities of the body, in the mistaken belief that shooting someone in the arm or leg is somehow guaranteed to be less lethal.

That’s simply not true.

An illustration of the vascular system, separating the arterial and venous systems. You’ll note major arteries and veins run through the upper legs and arms.

Do you see all the major veins and arteries in the arms and legs in the photo above? A direct bullet strike to any one of those is going to create a tremendous amount of blood loss, and a direct hit isn’t the only risk. You’ll note that those veins and arteries necessarily run near …Read the Rest

Source:: Bearing Arms

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