Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

Not to defend what the police have been doing overall during this protest, but in this specific incident you can see the protestors beating a police officer on the ground, and the protestor who got shot was swinging a metal pipe at the police officer that shot him.

Full context is police officers often beat protests during arresting. Sometimes they just fight each other. Anyway, I think the officer have better choices than attempting to kill the kid(shot in chest is obvious willing to kill).

I think anytime you shoot a gun at one someone you are shooting to kill, shoot to maim feels like it would be practically impossible outside of movies.

But I might be wrong, I've never shot a gun.

This concept you can shoot to maim is silly. Hitting a man is hard if you practice shooting. In a chaotic situation with adrenaline its even harder.

Shooting to hit is all you can do.

The police in Sweden is trained to shoot to maim, but only in somewhat controlled situations, such as someone wielding a knife approaching officers from a distance. First warn verbally, then fire a warning shot, then fire at the legs.

When there is no margin left, fire to stop. (Which means in practice, often death.)

https://polisen.se/om-polisen/polisens-arbete/polisens-befog...

The distance has to be very great - 21 feet is often quoted as the minimum distance where a gun wins over a knife. And many barrooms are less than that.

So in theory its a kind idea. But hardly ever significant in practice?

I would argue a sawed off double barrel 12 gauge with double / triple aught buck would reduce that down to a few feet.

Problem would be how you train people to hold their cool

That cavalier attitude is what gets officers killed in bar fights. It takes a couple seconds to cross 21 feet. About what it takes to recognize the danger and raise the weapon.