Do you think it would be better to arrest than kill?

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We all know which police in the US prefer... but that is the same reason it keeps happening, especially when there is guns galore. It seems to me, psychologically, arrest is always preferable even in such a place with the death penalty... why? Because people can only speculate about anything after such an incident. If Breivik was stopped in that manner how many copycats do you think there would be? Did Norway suffer any more far-right attacks? No, while US keeps doing so regularly.

In the end it depends on the context and situation, and weapons present... hardest to stop someone with automatic guns, but do they never at least try non-lethal shots enough to drop their weapons, and with numbers apprehend them? It seems possible and yet I've never heard it used. But why would lethal force be used when the knives or other such melee weapons are utilized? How could the only way to stop such people not by the majority of possibilities which don't include just smashing through the Gordian Knot...

There are obviously a variety of psychosocial factors behind every incident... what produces the best outcome? What can prevent further incidents from happening? No answer is simple, but destroying the problem simply won't destroy the overarching issues...

The police in the U.S. for the main part prefer to arrest and do so as peacefully as plausible in any instance where deadly force does not seem necessary. And this plays out. Over 99% of police interactions with civilians do not result in violence. Of those which do, only a portion of them result in death.

No, it's better to kill. I say we should just kill anyone suspected of crime. That will end the crime problem.

Seriously, what kind of a question is this? Police do not prefer to kill. Most arrests are just that: arrests. And when the suspect is shot it's most likely because he was being violent and resisting arrest.

If you are gonna make the claim that cops prefer to kill, you'd better have some pretty substantial evidence to support that claim.

While this works in movies, it doesn't work in real life. Someone in a situation where they have to use lethal force (and a gun is always lethal force) does not have time to take such a skilled shot. Soldiers and police alike are trained to shoot for center mass, because this is most likely to hit the person and to do so in a way that stops them. Trying to shoot somewhere else makes this result less likely... and again, this is lethal force, both legally and in practical terms. There are a lot of places on the human body where a gunshot can be fatal. You might think shooting someone in the leg would do it, but that's where your femoral artery is...

Heck, even stuff like rubber bullets are called "less lethal".

So yes, there are abuses and a lot of indications that US police use more force than required in more situations than is called for, but even in the best-case scenario once a cop is shooting at someone they're necessarily shooting to kill.