To all you gun toters who think the 20th century was the Stone Age,.38 revolvers will get the job done for defense.

Beginning in 1973, I was a cop in Los Angeles County. Every fellow cop I knew carried a .38 special in either a Colt or S&W with a 4 or 6 inch barrel. I carried a Colt Trooper Mk III with a four-inch barrel in an old Bianchi border patrolman holster. Twelve spare rounds of ammunition were carried in dump pouches, as speed loaders hadn’t been approved as yet. After a night shoot in which the nose of the ammunition hung up, I bought a .357 magnum version of the dump pouches and kept my ammo in Bianchi speed strips. I positioned them so they opened on the top instead of dumping so all I had to do was pull up on the strip tab. On my paddle key ring was a key for the shotgun lock and a call box key.

I was newly married and making $960 a month. My take home pay was $333 every two weeks. There was little money left over at the end of the month so an off-duty gun was out of the question. I carried the old Colt everywhere on and off duty. Off duty it was carried in an old Safariland OWB, tan with thumb break-designed holster. I still have the Trooper and both holsters.

We shot monthly qualifications and were paid extra depending upon expertise. Maximum shooting pay was $16.00 a month. Shooting pay was paid in one lump sum the first pay period in December. The trigger on the old Trooper was nowhere as slick as on a S&W, but I practiced until I could quickly stage the trigger and touch it off at the last until I made Distinguished Expert pay. $192.00 was a lot of money in 1973 dollars.

The ‘auto only generation’ may say that we didn’t have the need for high capacity autos as it was before the age of terrorism. You’re right, but we did have the Crips, Bloods, Hells Angels, Mexican Mafia, bank robbers working in pairs and armed ex-cons. Home invasion robberies wasn’t even a term yet, but I wished we could carry Colt 1911’s, but we were able to get the job done with .38 revolvers.

I think much of it was due to the fact that we talked and communicated with one another and we practiced not only shooting, but ‘what if’s, What if we’re ambushed in the alley?, What if you sense something hinky on a traffic stop? or What if your partner is held at gunpoint?”, etc. If something caught our eyes and didn’t look right or even if it made us wonder “why” we stopped and investigated.

We knew how to talk to people. I remember my field training officer made me get out of the car one swing shift (1630 – 0230 hours) in a residential area. He told me that I had to stop and talk with everyone on the one side of the block and down the other. He said he’d wait for me and I would have to relate every detail of every conversion I had with members of the public. There’s no app for that!

No we were not politically correct as we pulled our revolvers on many people at the slightest provocation. I can’t count the number of times I pointed my revolver and covered some citizen who came up to the car to talk.

We were trained and had the frame of mind to carry out the use of deadly force. We didn’t have or need psychologists for use of force incidents.

With my Colt and eighteen rounds of ammo, I rode and walked, entered burglarized buildings, conducted felony car stops and faced down armed criminals. We all carried eighteen rounds of ammo and I didn’t know anyone who carried a backup weapon until the mid and late 70’s when the AMT .380 and North American Arms .22 short came out.

In 1987, I attended the mandatory two-day semi auto class and started carrying a S&W 645. Later I carried a Glock 17 before ending my 30-year career with a S&W model 15. I carried two twin HKS speed loader pouches on my Sam Brown. Why? I disliked the DA/SA trigger on the old 645 and it was heavy. Like the Glock, the trigger pull was consistent from shot to shot with the model 15 without worrying about the partially staged trigger on the Glock. The .38 ammo had changed over the years from 110 grain Super Vels to Winchester 110 grain +P. I never felt under gunned and still don’t. I have a four-inch S&W model 64 next to my computer as I type.

You may well say a .38 revolver is unsuited or outdated for personal defense, but that is only your opinion. I’ve been there and done that. I’ve stared down the barrel at countless people with the .38 and it has never let me down. I do not know of a failure of the delivery system or ammo in actual use. It may not be stylish in the 21st century and it certainly isn’t perfect, but what weapons system is? An academy classmate of mine working for another department shot a suspect with a S&W .44. Two shots to the chest at up close and personal distance. The suspect was alive upon arrival of the paramedics. My four-inch .38 has worked on multiple and moving targets (another cop and I would drive to Lancaster before there were people there to shoot running jackrabbits). I have trusted my life and the lives of my partners with it.
Be safe. I am.