Intent to Kill

>>Rather, I'd call that a real good reason to actually hire some police somewhere in the United States, rather than just having the police forces simply being the folks with the snappiest-looking gang colors.<<

Precisely.

Besides, if the police are too brutal, that causes a whole cascade of other problems, such as: innocent people rightfully fear them too, so they run, which boosts your body count and outrages the citizenry (rightly so); and people won't call the police when it is appropriate to do so, because the police are likely to make matters worse instead of better, so then crimes don't get reported, which runs up the crime rate; and more people start taking the law into their own hands because the official law is a parsec away from actual justice, which creates much chaos and mayhem. Lots of countries have demonstrated variations on this slide into the abyss.

>>Most major US police forces are trained to empty their weapon if they fire it once. The (publicly stated) rationale for this is that if you're in a situation wherein you deem deadly force necessary, it should be lethal, period.<<

Then they're doing it wrong on several counts.

1) With that training, you get a lot of corpses. It's appropriate for soldiers, who are supposed to face enemies; not for police, who are supposed to face your own citizens.

2) If you've decided to kill, then kill. If you need four or five bullets to be sure you've done that -- especially at close range and against unarmed opponents -- then you are not adequately skilled with your weapon. At most, one to disable and one to finish, unless the circumstance are highly unfavorable (such as heavy-cover firefights).

3) A gun, like many weapons, offers options. Lethal force should be reserved as a last resort. Many modern guns have excellent "stopping power," so that if you shoot someone in a nonvital area he will almost certainly quit causing trouble. Lethal force is justified if your life or someone else's life is in clear and present danger. Otherwise it's not. If you have a gun and the other person is unarmed or trivially armed, lethal force is not justified. Even severe injury is usually unjustified against an unarmed opponent.

4) When you use excessive force, you teach people that this is acceptable behavior. That is not a lesson you want to be teaching if your goal is to protect the peace. And there are always more people outside the force than in it.

>>I've witnessed firsthand 4 cops emptying and reloading and emptying their mags again, into an unarmed but belligerent suspect.

Cops pile up bodies just as readily as soldiers.<<

Then they are bad cops, and should be replaced forthwith; and the training is bad if it consistently produces that result. I note that some other nations seem to have less of this type of trouble, while others have more; and America has moved up and down the scale over time. It is therefore malleable, so identifying the variables and moving them to protect the peace would be prudent.