Thread: Police shoot at car after high-speed rampage across Auckland

Originally Posted by Cordite

On the face of it, yes, but then you have a much better idea about a safe firing zone when you are using a shotgun. Less so with rifles since their bullets will go wayyyy beyond what your eyes see.

Once you contemplate short distances usually involved and the horrific potential lethal range of a stray rifle round -- either an arc several kilometres long, or through nearby house walls, courier vans, windows, trees, fences -- then the shotgun suddenly seems a good choice for police work. Did not say better, just good.

So why the hell would people be advocating letting 9 or 12 pellets of 00 buckshot go at a time when there is this horrific potential of stray rounds?

Surely any 00 buck pellets that miss their targets are stray rounds too? They can still kill anyone within a few hundred metres. Not as far as a rifle round, but still fucking dangerous. And as I said before, even if the sights are on the centre of the target, beyond about 15 metres you can't guarantee some pellets won't miss and potentially kill someone else.

What happens if the bad guy is 100 metres away with a rifle? How is a cop with a shotgun and 00 buckshot going to have any chance of hitting them?