Several years ago in Florida, a group of police officers felled a crazy guy with a gun by shooting him nearly 75 times. When a television reporter asked the police chief why they shot him so many times, the lawman replied candidly, “Because that is all the bullets we had.”

Put me down as one who staunchly disagrees with anyone who has the audacity to believe in excessive force when a crazy person with a gun threatens our society. Recently in Chattanooga a man was killed in a terrible altercation with six police officers. He was shot 43 times and I’m sickened by the “bleeding hearts” that are coming out of the woodwork.

A police officer is our greatest hope when things go bad. We charge him with the duty of doing whatever it takes to stop the danger, to end the fear. Let’s be real clear that to hold any one of those six Chattanooga Police Department officers up to anything short of bravery is just wrong and when they have already endured one tragedy, let’s not compound it.

Does it take 43 bullets to stop a guy? I don’t know because I have never seen it happen. I do know that one of my dearest friends was in a firefight in Afghanistan one night and shot an enemy soldier six times with a 9-millimeter pistol and the guy kept coming, only to fall when other soldiers sprayed him real well with rifle fire.

But to hear some blather, you would think a crazed man gets his “first shot free” at a badge in blue before the others should engage fire. Harder put, which of those six cops should have taken a bullet before the dumb guy who didn’t obey when told repeatedly to put down his weapon?

Put yourself in the officers’ place that night. They get a call a guy with a gun is at the fast-food restaurant. They know nothing whatsoever about the guy, that he is despondent or drunk or from the planet Mars. Their duty is to the innocent people who could die if a rampage begins. The bigger oath is to all of us – let none live in fear.

So they try to talk to him. They even Taser him in an effort to make him put the gun down. When the man’s body contractions resulted from the jolts of electricity, my guess is that he continued to hold the weapon, perhaps jerking this way and that. It shouldn’t make any difference. It should boil down to the singular fact if a police officer feels his life is threatened, he should take immediate action.

Understand, we weren’t there. The police officers were, and to wonder if six of them used excessive force is as absurd as a soldier telling an enemy combatant to stop for a minute so both can reload. Any soldier prays for that “one and done” shot in a firefight. Any soldier who has ever been in battle will tell you that rarely happens unless the firepower is of the largest degree.

Believe it or not, no soldier enjoys killing another man. It is even worse for a police officer who has to live with that for the rest of his life. You couldn’t pay me enough to do that. What makes even the most liberal among us think anything different?

Pick up any newspaper and, in a given week, you’ll read when some gunman in Tulsa or at Virginia Tech has massacred some innocent people. The guy is always crazy and I abhor the reports that come days later, telling us he was upset over being fired or because his girlfriend left him. Isn’t it odd that none of these pitiful explanations ever mention the families’ lives such deranged gunmen shatter week after week?

So how many of the editorialists, the newspaper writers, and the TV announcers have interviewed just one wife of any of the six police officers about the conversation they had at the kitchen table when that cop – their husband or wife – finally got home? Did you see a picture of just one of those guys hugging their son afterwards? I did not. Trust me, they went through a night of pure anguish. What, by the grace of God, do they need a lawyer for?

The reporters instead talk to the neighbors and the relatives of “the bad guy,” telling us he was really troubled by the way life went sour. Give me a break. Those policemen would have loved the luxury, but the baddie is holding a loaded rifle. So now the cops are seemingly vilified for doing their job, for making the world safe for “good guys.” Are we drowning in a sea of misplaced emotion or what?

The wash-out rate for cops is awful because – guess what – the job is awful. The only time anybody ever calls a policeman is when there is trouble. You laugh when you see them eating a glazed doughnut, but, face it, you ought to be buying their coffee. We also ought to pay them what they are worth. What would you charge an hour to shovel the manure of humanity these men and women do every day?

Thank God the times a policeman must use deadly force are rare. There is nothing worse that can happen to anyone involved, even those who watch, but, brother, when the deed must be done I’m a believer in using all the might and all the bullets you’ve got.

Let those six Chattanooga police officers alone. Go to the City Council and give them the ability for professional counseling with no deductible, or give them a few extra days off to pay for the horrible trauma each one endured every time a trigger was pulled, but don’t second-guess what happened in less than 15 seconds.

I wish we had the wherewithal to take every single critic on an eight-hour ride in Charlie Sector. I did it once and it was mind-blowing so, yes, I’m serious – let’s show ‘em up real close what a cop sees every night while we are in the warm beds and so comfortable with life we don’t even worry when we forget to lock the front door.

Leave those six cops alone and quit worrying about the depressed drunk who just acted so wildly he got shot 43 times. If a police officer is threatened with bodily harm, he should use every bullet he’s got and then throw his empty pistol if that's what it takes.

royexum@aol.com