Why should we care about Murtaugh killing his son's friend?

My point is that it really felt shoehorned in and heavy handed when there really wasn't much of a need to (if they weren't going to go much further w/ it.

Murtaugh had 6 days left to retire from the police force and sh!t was bound to happen.

It's Donner on his anti-gun high horse. The hypocritical, ignorant and ill-informed anti-gun lobby love to spew their proaganda. Obviously, in Donner's mind, it's the gun that is at fault and not the myriad of social factors leading up to the boy's death (poverty, easy money made via drug trade, racial tension, lack of effective parenting etc). Note the anti-IRA Propaganda poster hung prominently in the squad room. Since many cops are IRA members, I think it is unlikely that that BS poster would be displayed.

Then there's the whole laughable "cop killah" bullet mcguffin. News flash! This is BS! A complete fantasy fabrication by anti-gun hollywood idiots who are blinded by their agenda and obviously have no understanding of ballistics. Sharpening a 9mm bullet to a point is not going to make it magically pierce a vest let alone the blade of a bulldozer or front end loader! Besides, there are already plenty of bullets that will penetrate a vest - pretty much any and every rifle calibre; especially 5.56 as used in AR 15/M 16/M 4 rifles and carbines. One can easily obtain or build an AR with a 10 in barrel that is not much bigger than an MP5 SMG (used extensively in the LW movies) but with much better ballistics and superior muzzle velocity. One of the LW films (maybe this one) has an OA 93 which is essentially a cut down AR pistol that fires rifle calibre bullets. Vests are not actually "bullet proof" to every type of bullet. Only lower velocity bullets (mainly pistol) will be stopped. That said, bullets fired from a Tokorev pistol are sufficiently of high velocity to pierce the average vest. Vests come in various levels of protection. Typically in the interest of comfort, a lighter version is worn - usually under a shirt. Most cops these days wear a slightly heavier vest over their shirts. However, these will still not stop a rifle bullet. In Mayorthorpe Alberta 4 Mounties were killed by a creep shooting an HK G3 rifle (7.62 mm). Their vests didn't help them at all. A level 3 vest like I wore in Afghanistan incorporates ballistic plates front and back. These, combined with the kevlar, will stop a rofle bullet. However, they are heavy and uncomfortable.

So.....what's the big deal about magical 9mm bullets? Nothing. It's just BS aimed at sensationalizing Donner's mis-guided anti-gun agenda. Idiot. Reminds me of a ridiculous episode of the medical drama "St Elsewhere" when a victim is brought into the ER with.....an exploding bullet in him (cue the organ music). The doctors work under extreme pressure to remove the bullet...terrified that it may detonate if jarred or if the timer runs out! I was laughing so hard I had tears running down my cheeks. Idiots!

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/lethal-weapon-3/40257/why-lethal-weapon-3-was-a-low-point-for-the-franchise

5. “I killed that boy”

Lethal Weapon 3 nearly did something pretty amazing.

Action cinema in the 80s and 90s featured heroes killing a lot of people – predominantly bad guys, but people nonetheless. At one point late in the movie, Roger kills another one, but this one he recognizes. He starts losing it as it dawns on him that his latest victim is a friend of his teenage son. He’s just a baby! Riggs is initially bewildered by his partner’s panic – understandably since between them they’ve massacred several dozen perps in the line of duty – but Roger is inconsolable.

You fleetingly wonder if the film is going to do something pretty brave for a movie of its type: by putting a name and a young face to one of the disposable bad guys that action heroes slaughter so indiscriminately, is the Lethal Weapon franchise about to question the merits of such a homicidal response to crime?

No. No it isn’t.

Roger quickly realizes that it wasn’t his fault the lad got shot, or even the boy’s fault. No, it was the people who put the gun in his hand. And there’s only one way to deal with people who do things like that. And that’s to shoot them and their employees multiple times.

Roger comes to this epiphany while drunk on his boat. Riggs comes to visit him – not because he’s worried about his friend’s traumatic experience, but because his daughter asked him to – and they have a nice chat. It starts off about the shooting, but then Riggs interrupts his crying, grieving partner and yells at him for selfishly wanting to retire (seriously, what a dick). The next day he teams up with Riggs and Riggs’ new girlfriend and threatens a bunch of people with a machine gun, and then watches on as Rene Russo’s Sergeant Cole beats the snot out of some guys because they had the temerity to ask if she had a search warrant. He then ends the film by helping them kill a lot of people at a construction site.

So the moral of the story is: killing an armed criminal you have a tangential connection to is bad, but killing the criminals who supplied his weapon will make it OK in the end. Or something.

Read more: http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/lethal-weapon-3/40257/why-lethal-weapon-3-was-a-low-point-for-the-franchise#ixzz479blezyi