I just don't understand.......

Ugh. No where did I say that an officer SHOULDN'T defend themselves. Of COURSE if you have someone aiming a gun at you, you'd have no choice but to take them out, use deadly force. What I disagreed with here was that it wasn't a gun nor a knife/machete or something of the like. As someone else also mentioned, one of the officers could have tasered the guy and dropped him, and if for some reason taser didn't knock him on his arse immediately, and he was advancing towards the officer to where he couldn't be taken down some other way, then by all means, go that route of deadly force.

Yes yes yes........I'm sure you do encounter some extreme piece of crap nutty drugged up uncooperative crazies. Part of the job is it not? The job that you CHOSE to do?

You don't have to have any special training to see something for what it is. I didn't go through the police academy, but I have two eyes and a pretty decent head on my shoulders, and I don't think I'm being outrageous here.

"If someone attacked me with a weapon, how dead would they be?"

Well, if I'm in a situation where I feel my life is legitimately in danger, and I was actually being attacked as you say, I'd shoot the sucker in the crotch, take his weapon, then call you guys to come pick him up. If it were a mental person holding a screwdriver, and I told him to back off, and he kept stepping towards me, I'd shoot him in the knee caps and render him immobile, then call you guys to come pick him up I suppose.

But in all seriousness, that's a vague question. So many circumstances would change they way said situation would be handled. Am in out in public? Am I on my private property? Am I an officer with or without back up?