Clearly the cop doesn&#x27;t have self-defense as his top priority, or he wouldn&#x27;t be in that situation at all.  He&#x27;d make sure he was somewhere else when the possibility of violence manifested itself.  Like, say, I would.<p>Police officers shouldn&#x27;t be shooting people on the off chance that a suspicious bulge might be a gun, but it seems pretty unreasonable to expect police officers to put their self-defense as the very <i>lowest</i> priority and wait until bullets actually come out of a gun-like-object being pointed at them before shooting.