Crazed gunman Jeffrey Johnson, 53, killed one person before he was shot to death outside the Empire State Building on 34th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City in a chaotic gunfight that left nine bystanders injured.

Since this incident, some critics of police policy involving the apprehension of criminals have raised the debate over gun usage in the police force. Many argue policemen shouldn’t be using guns to apprehend criminals due to the fact that nine people were injured in the crossfire that resulted in Jeffrey Johnson’s death.

This suggested change in police protocol is something that I cannot, in good conscience, ever advocate for a man or woman who I ask to risk their life for me and my fellow Americans on any given day.

We as civilians have the luxury to second guess the choices made by the police officers who apprehended Jeffrey Johnson, but Assistant Professor of Justice and Policy Studies Will Pizio suggests another point of view.

“Use of deadly force is OK if you are faced with a split second decision,” says Pizio. “The cop saw the gun and shot the criminal. They probably had three seconds to make a choice.”

When one thinks about the immediate reaction that policemen have to go on when they see a gun, it is shortsighted to say that they should have used a taser or some other form of non-lethal weapon simply to protect the safety of bystanders, because the decision to shoot Johnson was an instinctual one.

“Not being there, and only knowing what little I have seen on the news about it, I can’t make a call on whether the officers did the right thing or not,” said Director of Public Safety Ron Stowe in an email interview.

“Without question, it is unfortunate that innocent bystanders were wounded and I would imagine the officers involved are second guessing their own actions,” said Stowe. “That said, the officers had to react to the situation at hand — in a split second — based on the information they had available to them.”

“There is no doubt that the situation would’ve been even more tragic except for the extraordinary acts of heroism,” said Mayor Bloomberg in a media conference. “New York City is the safest big city in this country, but we are not immune to the national problem of gun violence.”

We are lucky to have heroes and we need them because we all live in a world of violence. When asking the selfless to defend us from perils, we must give them those tools necessary for the job at hand. We sleep safely in our beds because of the police and I am grateful for them.

In the words of Niccolo Machiavelli, “Before all else, be armed.”