InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "cue the pulse to begin."

sometimes sanity takes vacation time on me (keieeeye) wrote,
@ 2009-06-04 10:37:00

Current mood:	curious
Entry tags:	bunbun, faith in humanity

Curiosity I has it
What weapons do police officers in your country of origin/residence typically carry?

There was an article on the front page yesterday about how two injuries incurred in the line of duty were good examples of why it would be smart to train our police to carry tasers. In both of them they defended themselves with pepper spray, though in one incidence it just wound the guy up. I'm fairly certain some of our police are allowed to carry guns, and I'm not sure about nightsticks, it just seems that pepper spray is a wee bit pathetic.

Holly is onto me, he wouldn't let me pick him up this morning to give him his medicine. I had to get the syringe in his mouth long enough to use it while he was sitting on the floor in front of me, having lured him over with pettings.

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mathteacher
2009-06-03 06:20 pm UTC (link)

typical in the u.s., afaik, is one or more handguns, a nightstick (the kind that has a small handle perpendicular to the main shaft toward one end), and often something like pepper spray. there have been at least a few programs to give tasers or similar things to some officers (e.g. only giving them to sergeants), but in several instances (at least one, anyway) taser use has resulted in death, which i think has slowed adoption.

i'd say it's not uncommon for officers to have rifles (M14 or similar) and/or shotguns at their disposal, probably in their car, but not something they carry. special units have rifles (M16), maybe automatic weapons, and maybe more elaborate non-lethal devices, such as tear gas or flash-bangs or whatever.

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keieeeye
2009-06-03 06:27 pm UTC (link)

rifles o.o Like the one cop whose pepper spray wound up the attacker was a rural officer and the nearest back up was 40 minutes away and it sounded like he just had pepper spray, maybe there was something else in his car but idk. The other one was in a mall with a couple of other officers and a dog (one of the charges they arrested the guy on was trying to kill a police dog :( he had two big knives) so obviously they would not have wanted to pull guns out and start shooting or anything even if they had had handguns.

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mathteacher
2009-06-03 06:32 pm UTC (link)

i think the substantially-more-armed-ness (can you tell it's near the end of my work day and my brain is cooked?) of u.s. cops has to do with the substantially greater number of guns in the hands of the general public here. the one chicago suburb that i know used to have shotguns in every police car hasn't for at least a decade, maybe longer. rifles/shotguns in regular cops' vehicles is, i'd guess, a more rural thing than an urban thing--urban areas are much more likely to have a SWAT team (special weapons and tactics) or something similar, where a limited group of officers are trained in closer-to-military weapons and tactics.

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	keieeeye 2009-06-03 06:35 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah, we... really don't have as many guns here. I mean there's quite a few hunting ones but they're generally locked up in gun safes. I think most armed assaults here are with knives or blunt objects. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

mathteacher
2009-06-03 06:38 pm UTC (link)

yeah, i guess it's really the handguns that are an issue... well, maybe the automatic weapons, too (seriously, do you need an automatic assault rifle to hunt deer?). it's much harder to commit an armed assault with a hunting rifle... and it's not exactly easy to kill large numbers of people in a short span of time with non-automatic weapons that have a maximum of 10 rounds per clip (that's a not-uncommon clip size limit in some states here, anyway).

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	keieeeye 2009-06-03 06:42 pm UTC (link)
	I think my dad uses a standard shotgun when he goes hunting but I don't know for sure, I've never actually seen it and have no idea where he even keeps it. I highly suspect it's not even on the property. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

mathteacher
2009-06-03 06:47 pm UTC (link)

i've never handled or fired a shotgun nor an automatic weapon (including something like an M16 that can fire bursts of 3 rounds). i get the feeling that the recoil from shotguns is massive and i'm not sure that they can be fired on standard indoor ranges; i'm not sure my state allows the use of automatic weapons on ranges at all, but i passed on trying the M16 (or something like it) when i was at a range in Vegas. i have, however, fired several handguns and even a small-caliber rifle (all on indoor ranges). Chicago doesn't allow possession of firearms at all, so if i were to own one, i couldn't keep it at home. plus, they're really fucking expensive.

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	keieeeye 2009-06-03 06:49 pm UTC (link)
	I've handled... erm... laser tag rifles? I'm not even sure I've ever actually seen a gun in real life, come to think of it! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

mathteacher
2009-06-04 07:34 pm UTC (link)

shooting wasn't quite what i expected it to be...

in fact, i'd say it was very much like doing the page layout for a newsletter with an existing template--it requires focus, but it's basically repetitive and doesn't require a whole lot of thought. i know i once went through a ridiculous number of rounds in one session, i want to say 500, because it was that much cheaper per unit to buy that large of a box of ammo than the next smaller size, so i must've been on the range for like an hour and a half.
load-aim-fire-aim-fire-aim-fire-aim-fire-aim-fire-aim-fire-aim-fire-aim-fire-aim-fire-aim-fire repeated 50 times, maybe with some changing of the target in between. i never shot at silhouettes or pictures, though, just bullseyes (i suspect that it's illegal in illinois to use pictures as targets or something, because none of the places i've been here sell Osama Bin Laden pictures to use as targets, like the place in Vegas). i was almost certainly using a Ruger MK-II, as pictured in my icon (though they aren't magenta unless you photoshop them).

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	musify 2009-06-03 09:00 pm UTC (link)
	Australian police can carry guns, but they have to sign them out at the start of their shift and sign them back in, and account for every single shot made, and I think generally they don't take them out on routine things, just potentially dangerous ones. I'm not completely sure, though. (Reply to this)