Levers For the Cops

[Quoheleth]

Where's Gecko45 when we need him? Certainly he could converse on this subject...

Since he's not here, my opinion, in a word: Usability.

Ever try to fire a lever action while prone? First shot is OK. Second shot, you probably have to roll sideways to work the action.

How about leaning over a car hood? Again, first shot - no problem. Second shot, your rear arm is moving all over the place. You will lose a precise sight picture almost guaranteed.

AR, Mini-14, etc., the gun does all the moving for you. Keep your stance/cover with little body movement.

Could it be done? Yep. Can you say, "Chuck Connors"? Skeeter Skelton loved having a lever action in his scout car. That was back in the day, though. In a day & age where even kids in school are packing semi-autos to class [shudder], LEOs need every break-even point they can get. Why hamstring them?

Q

 

[Shawnee]

"Ever try to fire a lever action while prone? First shot is OK. Second shot, you probably have to roll sideways to work the action."

That's what I mean by the police mentality/tactics need to change.

There are only two reasons why a cop would need a second shot.

1. He missed with the first one and that's his error for not waiting untill he had a shot he could make. His first bullet did no one any good and may have hit an innocent bystander.

2. He engaged multiple armed assailants by himself and from the wrong position and those are his S.W.A.T.zie machismo errors too.

Our police need to leave "bad-looking" black T-shirts and High Noon behind.

 

[piratelooking@40]

Shawnee:

Holy cow! Time to listen to some Prozac, man.

 

[HorseSoldier]

That's what I mean by the police mentality/tactics need to change.

There are only two reasons why a cop would need a second shot.

1. He missed with the first one and that's his error for not waiting untill he had a shot he could make. His first bullet did no one any good and may have hit an innocent bystander.

2. He engaged multiple armed assailants by himself and from the wrong position and those are his S.W.A.T.zie machismo errors too.

Our police need to leave "bad-looking" black T-shirts and High Noon behind.

Um, no.

There's obviously #3 -- He hit the bad guy and the bad guy kept going. And before any manly chest thumping starts about the mighty knock down power of the thutty-thutty compared to mouse gun rounds, etc, it bear noting that there have been a lot of failures to stop observed with .308 long guns and machineguns over across the water. Occasional failures to stop from .50 cal hits.

Safest bet in a gunfight is possess the skill, the mindset, and the equipment to inflict however many gunshots on the bad guy until he is eliminated as a threat. That's just as true for cops as it is for military applications. If deadly force is justified, it's vital to eliminate the threat, whatever that takes.

As for the two scenarios raised:

#1 -- Under life and death stress accuracy in combat plummets for many reasons, some of them unavoidable aspects of human physiology and biology, even for guys who can print tiny groups on paper targets at the range. If an LEO has a legitimate need to use deadly force (and this issue seems to be the root of your problem), he or she, again, has a legitimate need to eliminate the threat as rapidly as possible for both their personal protection as well as the protection of any law abiding citizens who may be at risk.

#2 -- I may be wrong, but it seems to me like a whole lot of real LEO involved shootings don't involve much of any ability to choose engagements on the part of the cops. Sometimes two guys at a traffic stop turn out to be two wanted criminals who produce guns and commence to shooting, etc. Unless your idea of a perfect world is a SWAT team rolling as back up for any officer who is not 100% guaranteed to be dealing with only a single individual (and I'm sure that would not tend to produce use of force issues . . .) then your second point just isn't very viable, I don't think.

 

[Shawnee]

"Sometimes two guys at a traffic stop turn out to be two wanted criminals who produce guns and commence to shooting, etc"


Lawd forbid the cop be smart enough to back off until a satisfactory posse can be brought to bear. That would take actual Intelligence.

For that matter - our police need to rethink the entire matter of traffic stops. They are tied with domestic violence calls as the most dangerous deeds the LEO is asked to perform - that alone ought to be a tip-off - at least for intelligent people. 90% of all traffic stops don't need to be made anyway.

 

[P-32]

Lawd forbid the cop be smart enough to back off until a satisfactory posse can be brought to bear. That would take actual Intelligence.

I work by my self many times. Back up can be a long ways away. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

1. He missed with the first one and that's his error for not waiting untill he had a shot he could make. His first bullet did no one any good and may have hit an innocent bystander

Most rookies even know the minimum responce is 2 rounds.

P-32: Do you ever do paintball with them? The few paintball battles I've been involved in taught me more about shooting while under fire than all the range time I've ever racked up.

No, but airsoft is in the works. Some of our officers have trained with sims. I wish we could afford those. We also have a fancy trailer with a newer version of FATS, the operator can shoot back. The trailer is owned by our insurance company and comes around a few times a year.

 

[ArmedBear]

Sometimes two guys at a traffic stop turn out to be two wanted criminals who produce guns and commence to shooting, etc.

...in which case, an AR-15 in the trunk might as well be a good luck charm in the ashtray...

If this happens with any sort of frequency, maybe some re-thinking of police tactics in general might be a good idea. I don't want to see good cops killed, with AR's in their trunks.

No, but airsoft is in the works.

Great! (Much of what I learned about a firefight, from simulated firefights, is that I don't really want to be in a firefight if it's avoidable. )

 

[HorseSoldier]

...in which case, an AR-15 in the trunk might as well be a good luck charm in the ashtray...

True, but Shawnee's complaints don't seem to be limited to patrol carbine use.

If this happens with any sort of frequency, maybe some re-thinking of police tactics in general might be a good idea. I don't want to see good cops killed, with AR's in their trunks.

Fox and/or SpikeTV don't seem to have much trouble finding cop dashboard cam footage of this scenario occurring frequently enough to fill hours of "Worlds Deadliest X/Y/Z" shows. I'd think any law enforcement agency that doesn't train for this as a worst case scenario is being negligent.

For that matter - our police need to rethink the entire matter of traffic stops. They are tied with domestic violence calls as the most dangerous deeds the LEO is asked to perform - that alone ought to be a tip-off - at least for intelligent people. 90% of all traffic stops don't need to be made anyway.

"Traffic stops are too dangerous, maybe we shouldn't do them" seems like kind of a shaky logic, really. Maybe I'm not anti-cop enough to grasp the logic.

 

[Shawnee]

Forget the "anti-cop" accusations, HorseSoldier. I'm just anti-Stupid and pro-We, the People.... and sick of reading about innocent people getting gunned down every week by our trigger-happy LEOs.

We need to rethink a LOT of our police policies and expectations - for the safety of the Public AND the safety of our officers. Those same San Antonio barrio cops told me The First Rule of Gunfights is: Don't get into one. They were not today's S.W.A.T.zies though, they were PEACE officers.

The best weapon any person has in any dangerous situation is the weapon between their ears and it's dangerous, crazy and downright criminal to pretend that can be replaced by an AR and a badge. Unfortunately our LEO establishment is about the most resistant to change organization there is. After all, it took almost a century to get them to rein in even a little bit on their Public-endangering "chase" polices.

 

[BHP FAN]

Here in my part of California,the rifle and shotgun are not locked away uselessly in the trunk,they're in the front seat in a locked mount.

 

[HorseSoldier]

Forget the "anti-cop" accusations, HorseSoldier. I'm just anti-Stupid and pro-We, the People.... and sick of reading about innocent people getting gunned down every week by our trigger-happy LEOs.

Use of the term "SWATzie" doesn't exactly advance your claim to not being anti-cop. Suggesting that the police in this nation are on some kind of death squad rampage gunning down innocent civilians by the truck load also seems, if not hostile, at least somewhere towards the negative end of neutral.

We need to rethink a LOT of our police policies and expectations - for the safety of the Public AND the safety of our officers.

I'm not a cop, but this sounds a lot like when people start talking about "helping our poor boys in uniform," which is usually a preamble to anything but helping guys like me who actually are in uniform.

The best weapon any person has in any dangerous situation is the weapon between their ears and it's dangerous, crazy and downright criminal to pretend that can be replaced by an AR and a badge.

I'd be curious to hear some percentages on how often a patrol carbine is actually pulled out of the trunk/rack/etc. If I'm not mistaken, even hauling an assault rifle, or shotgun out of a patrol car, is subject to very particular and narrowly defined rules of engagement (or whatever the LE agency equivalent term is), much less actually firing it.

Unfortunately our LEO establishment is about the most resistant to change organization there is. After all, it took almost a century to get them to rein in even a little bit on their Public-endangering "chase" polices.

Actually, with the actions of any law enforcement officer liable to cost the city or state he or she works for millions in law suit related liability from most anything a jury can be convinced is negligence or simply bad form, I'd think the exact opposite would tend to be true.

Certainly LE agencies seem to have taken to less-than-lethal weapons like ducks to water, etc.

 

[Shawnee]

This thread has veered off-topic and out of the THR realm, and I'll take 51% of the blame, at least. My apologies to the Board and the Moderators, and the Moderators are welcome to delete any/all of my posts here.

Sorry Folks !

 

[KD5NRH]

How about leaning over a car hood?

Why are you leaning out over your cover? Back up and use it right, and you won't have to move the gun to operate the lever. If you train right with a lever action, the next round will be chambered instinctively by the time you recover from recoil.

 

[C-grunt]

WOW OK there where do I start.

Im a cop for Phx PD. Very large city with a little over 3k officers. We have 60 rifles on the street. 60!. 500 square miles of city, 3 shifts, weekends, and sick days usually leave us with maybe 3-5 rifles on at any given time. Luckily one of those rifles is on my squad. It rarely gets used, but when it does its needed.Our patrol rifle operators have to go through a training course and qualify every 3 or 4 months.

If you want to stand in the front yard of a barricaded house with a guy in there armed with a FAL, by all means go ahead. Ill take a position back down the street with the rifle guys. If the guy comes out before SWAT gets there, Ill let him know it time-outies because youre not ready yet.

No officer knows he is going into a gunfight. One of my partners got into one while trespassing a transient from a motel. A good friend of mine was shot in the hand during a traffic stop. Officer Erfle was killed by a jaywalker. Officer Cortez was killed by a guy who was using bad checks.

Most stuff a LEO does doesnt require a backup and a lot of the time you cant get one. If its slow, NO ONE on my squad goes to a call alone, no matter what it is. But that doesnt always happen.

And yes the police have a bad rep for not so good accuracy and shooting lots of ammo. Most LEOs arent gunnies and the surprise of the sudden gunfight, non COM hits, and the moving target dont exactly help things either. Being a LEO has definitely taught me a couple things about pistols. Bad hits pretty much eqaul no hits and shoot the bad guy a lot. In the immediate terms of your survival of the situation, a gut shot that the bad guy dies from a day later is useless. Also the human body is incredibly strong yet weak. It all depends on who you are. Good guys die from the smallest things and bad guys survive things they shouldnt. Best example is the trooper down south (I believe) who shot the bad guy, who lived, 6 times with his .357 mag in the chest. He was shot with a .22 in the armpit and died.

But you know what, Im sure all the knowledgeable experts here would be super cool headed when they stopped to help a guy change a flat tire and he spins around and opens fire. Yep, it would be a quick Mozambique drill and it would end right there.

As far as the AR vs lever discussion. If you had to take a shot at a guy at 50 yards with your patrol rifle and behind the bad guy was a neighborhood. Is that 30-30 or 45-70 the best choice?

And to say that law enforcement is hugely resistant to change.....are you kidding me? My OPS orders change almost on a monthly basis.

Its late and Im tired. I got in a fight today with a crazy chick who tried to choke me and Im going to bed now.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

"Ever try to fire a lever action while prone? First shot is OK. Second shot, you probably have to roll sideways to work the action."

That's what I mean by the police mentality/tactics need to change.

There are only two reasons why a cop would need a second shot.

1. He missed with the first one and that's his error for not waiting untill he had a shot he could make. His first bullet did no one any good and may have hit an innocent bystander.

2. He engaged multiple armed assailants by himself and from the wrong position and those are his S.W.A.T.zie machismo errors too.

Our police need to leave "bad-looking" black T-shirts and High Noon behind.

So I see you ascribe to the Barney Fife armament of cop patrol rifles. Do you suggest they carry the one round in their shirt pocket like Barney or is your opinion of cops so foul that you think they one round should be carried in an onboard gunsafe?

 

[Shawnee]

Here is The Bottom Line, Gentlemen...

It is NOT OK for our cops to gun down innocent or non-threatening citizens. Not even ONE.

NO excuses. Not even ONE.

There are NO "Ooopsies". Not even ONE.

Ever.

 

[rc109a]

I think this post has gone far beyond why police do not use lever actions instead of AR's. As another firearms instructor I have another take on this. We were given our AR's by the military. They did not cost us anything. Since that is what we were given our policy and procedure had to reflect that and state that the only patrol rifle acceptable was the Ar platform in 223. We are allowed to buy our own AR's at our expense. We get some pretty good discounts (the department not the LEO's) and sometimes they fall below those of the lever actions. AR's are easier to shoot for most officers then lever actions. They are easier to keep clean and can be repaired easier. The parts and options are easier to obtain. The AR allows light attatchments and optics if needed without extensive modifications. Most of the officers in our department are ex military and they are familar with this platform (we train monthly on our weapons and it does not always have to include live ammo). You can have this same argument with revolvers and semi-auto pistols. Yes, there are some departments that get carried away. Some departments need more funding just to provide flashlights. I am sure others will continue to argue the point, but I thought I would put out a different view.

 

[rc109a]

Shawnee:
Did anyone on here say it was?

 

[Shawnee]

"Did anyone on here say it was?"


Not outright. But several are defending the tactics and reckless equipment use that produce such fatalities with alarming regularity and that is tacit and clear approval of those fatalities.


Snipe away. I'm done with this thread and again apologize for my part in leading it astray.

 

[chad1043]

I'm surprised it took so long for someone like rc109a to post up about the pricing of these rifles. I'm sure they are hugely discounted. After riding along with and shooting with a police officer here in town, I have to say I rather have them have a M4 then a 30-30. If you were in a hostage situation that called for the police to come in, what would you rather them have? I don't know, but I think every department is run a little differently. I know that our department has tactical training a lot. They use real life situations and in the training, cops and people die. When people die they do it all over again and again. They get yelled at, I was there I got hit with a paint pellet and I got to hear the captain yell his head off at the officer who fired with out target recognition.

My hat is off to every policeman or woman who puts his life on the line for my sake.

Chad

 

[Harve Curry]

There was a time when the lever action was state of the art, now it's the AR based firearms. If I was a policeman then I'd opt for a weapon in the trunk or rack that would put me on the same playing field as the bad guys might use against me. It would have to function flawlessly, penetrate body armor, and be capable of 1 MOA accuracy.

 

[kBob]

I have done this arguement from when "the internet" meant GeNe.

One thing that was an issue then was that police need to work inside the community, not over it, to be successful.

The AR platform looks like what it is, a military weapon. This intimidates not only bad guys but good citizens as well.

Looks matter.

The opinion of the public matters.

Many of us these days live in semi rural environments where an LEO might be faced with an angry bull or an injured horse on one shift and the drug runner and dope growers on the next ten acre plot the next day or the street gang in the low cost housing units clustered on the edge of town the next.

I do not think an AR in 5.56mm would be my first choice for an anti half ton quadraped rifle.

I also do not think a "thutty-thutty" would be my first choise for using in the built up areas or even for the LEOs to be firing at those folks three hundred yards away in their "garden"

Different guns for different jobs.

The free former military M16 A1s were not free BTW as they each came with a small charge forthe paperwork and handling as it were. The county my shooting club is in participated in that program.

One of the issues that got the county a new sheriff was the fact that the old one was arming his deputies with "military weapons"

When I was getting my associate with a concentration in Law Enforcement I was young and dumb and full of.....lets not go there. I wrote a paper supproting the dressing of LEOs in black uniforms as it is dark half the time (and local LEOs teneded to white shirts or light tan in thiose days) with boots as those reduce the common ankle injuries of that time and a patrol rifle that was black and bad. (like the LEO mags of the time I loved the AR-180 over the AR15)

Later I went on to a BS in Criminology and believe it or not did a paper on response to terrorism in 1980.

Later I got older. I paid attention.

No question if Bob was going into a un avoidable gunfight, specifics unknown, Bob would much preferr and AR(15 or 180) over a rattling Winchester 94 (what many of the leos in north florida did have in their trunks in the late 1960s through 90)

On the other hand I learned that what the people you deal with think and feel is important.

If your storm trooper uniform and scarry military rifle make the public uncomfortable or even fear you, how much public support can you count on?

If you frighten a potentul information source so they do not tell you what is happening in their neoighbor hood does that help you avoid having to intimidate a bad guy?

LEOs be honest. How many bad guys actually use body armor that can even stop your service hanfgun? How many actually "out gun" you?

Would a less military looking rifle be that much less effective, for instance would a Min 14 in a wooden stock be so less effective than a AR that it would be a bad thing.

Remember that in ten year period eneding about 2004 or so no non Federal LEO made a shot further than 75 yards before you complain about accuracy.

I do not understand the references to the LA bank robbers. Fact is they were basically not hit before the folks with the HK carbines showed up. Infact a couple of the first officers on the scene never fired a shot dispite being closer and having better shots than the ones that did make the few hits. A .30-30 rifle WOULD have ended that fight if weilded by one of the officers willing and capable of shooting had one available.

The move to the ARs in Law Enforcement is mostly fashion. Some times some interesting logic is used to justify the change from less visuallythreating weapons. Our local Rifle Teamamong our Sheriffs department recent went over to commercial AR15s over their existing Minis. (this is not a competative team but those officers on duty at any time with a rifle available and oncall for back up of a non rfle armed LEO or to provide perimiter security for SWAT) The cheif selling point was "the AR15s are easier to keep clean and break down" what?

Trust me I know what it is like when you think public opion places you in positions where you feel the bosses care less for your personal security is less important than public opinion.

No fun.

But sometimes in the long run the public relations means less of the nasty stuff.

I think this is what some of the folks that seem anti cop are trying to say.

Some of them seem actually anti cop.

Its politics, finance and leadership attitudes that will decide what guns LEOs get, not arguements on line.

Those M-16A1s in the county next door? Lowest paid county in FLorida. Deputies had to provide their own weapons. Sheriff found the funds to put an M-16A1 in every car. My problem with his discission was the lack of training time and money devoted to the rifles and shooters. His agency provide a bare minimum ammo to fire semi anual qualifications with and the same amount for practice. Our shooting club members preovided ammo for some of the deputies to shoot in our action shooting events. Some ashamed of being out shot by palsied half blind guys in their 70s with fifty year old revolvers never showed up again. A couple said "Hmm" and stayed around and at least showed up when their patrol duties allowed them to legitamately patrol our range.

LEOs we get here on THR are gun cranks like the rest of us or as some in Law enforcemtn would say "gun F**S" the majority of LEOs are not hobbiest and likely feel their training is just peachy keen. Some even see fire arms training as a chore.

It is easy to see how some folks could be concerned about LEos with little training or desire to get such dashing about with "High capacity magazine fed military rifles"

It is also easy to see how if I was a sworn officer at the moment that regardless of training and ability I would want an AR over grandpa's lever gun or a semi auto pistol caliber carbine, or a mutant pump hunting rifle or a bead sighted 12 gauge pump smoothbore slug gun.

This one has as much potentual for being argued out to a conclussion everyone can agree with than the M-16 verses "Real Rifle" arguement.

let's put it to bed....without its supper.

-Bob Hollingsworth

 

[Blacksmoke]

In the early 1970s I knew a LEO in a small nothern California town who had the foresight to carry a Browning Hi Power when every one else packed a .38 Special or maybe a .357 magnum. In the trunk of his patrol car was a Johnson rifle. I don't know if he ever had to use that Johnson but I sure would not have wanted to be a perp on the run with him after me....

 

[Robert]

As a former LEO with the State Patrol I can only speak to my experience and training. But really a lever rifle... I mean wow... might as well carry a peace maker while you are at it. In the trunk of my car was not only an M-16 but an scoped M-14 as well. When I inquired as to why we had an M-14 in the trunk I was told "cause it goes through a windshield a hell of a lot better than the 5.56". Again I can only speak to my training and experience but we were taught that every round fired counted and that no matter what your intentions were, if someone other than the bad guy were struck you were to be held accountable. Our training in shooting, or not shooting depending on the situation, was more extensive than our driving. And I received more driving training than most 20 people put together.

 

[rc109a]

kBob: Your right the M-16's were not free, we had to pay gas and drive 40 miles to pick them up. Other then that I filled out the paper work and turned it in. A year later we were told to come and get them. You are right on about most LEO's training. They are like other people. They do what is needed and they don't want to do more. I am glad our department is not like that. You have a very good point, and it was made very nice!