While it saddens me to say this, it's the truth. A lot of police officers don't know, and some don't even want to know, anything about the firearms they carry. Not all of us, but enough to woory me.
A lot of folks think because an officer carries a gun all day that they, somehow, know more about them than everyone else. Not so. Many of the officers at my dept understand and shoot their firearms quite well. Others just don't care. Seems to be split down the middle.
A lot of new officers seem to have fallen in with the anti crowd. They carry their gun because they have to, not because they see it as a tool that mat be used to save their or someone else's life. A couple have even said they would never use their weapon for any reason. Current laws have made it near impossible to replace these people. These are usualy the same officers that see there job as being a "soical worker" rather than a law enforcement officer.
I can't tell you how many officers I've seen that had to be "pen" qualified on the range (taking a pen and punching holes in their targets). Some are done this way because they are to weak to properly handle a gun and some because they are to afraid of the gun to use it properly. No one, except the officers who have to work with them, seems to care. Admin wants officers who have a degree, believe all problems can be solved by a "program", think all problems are because the "poor people" aren't understood, and think that enforcing the law in certain parts of town is "oppression". These officers usually work their way up the chain faster than others. IMO, they are also responsible, due to their policies, for as many officer injuries and deaths as are the "bad guys".
I guess this is just the long way around to what I'm saying. But amny officers, even though they carry guns, don't know much about them. Luckly, some of us do.