Why would you shoot someone in the back if you thought they were holding a

bomb?

On Randi Rhodes's show, a man called in and said if you thought someone had a bomb, you would shoot a temple shot - you would never aim anywhere but the head if you thought they had a bomb! What an excellent point!!

For your sake.

BOOM, you blow up too.

If he was running I would think you would aim for something bigger than the head.

Impossible to answer.

when all you have is a hammer, all the world's a nail.

when all you're trained in is how to use your gun, all the world's a target. if you think someone has a bomb, there are many approaches and tools to assess and act or choose not to act in a given situation. a gun may indeed be the best tool for certain situations. but other tools, such as observing and thinking and talking can also be very useful, and should be explored first.

for shooting to be right, you need to be highly confident that (a) the lethal threat to yourself and/or others is real and imminent and (b) that shooting will actually minimize the threat, rather than, say, actually triggering the bomb, and ideally, (c) that all other viable non- or less-lethal options have been exhausted.