Quote:
Originally Posted by WR Moore
Actually, IIRC, the stats were from an IACP (International Association of Chiefs of Police) study, don't recall the date, but you can find it cited in Ayoob's "The Semi-Automatic Pistol in Police Service". I expect you can also get ahold of a copy of the original study if you try. I always did wonder how the reports could reconcile a 2.7 rounds per encounter stat with a published hit probability in the same report of 20%.
Now, those were averages. I recall a western highway patrol unit that was running mid 60% with round guns. NYPD has had some notable incidents where multiple officers emptied their Glocks with minimal results. Training is the more important issue, but the trigger of the average stock auto isn't as stiff as the average stock revolver, therefore easier to hit the target with. Our average qual scores went up when we made the transition back in the early 1990's. In fact, we went something like 8 years without anyone who required qualification enhancement (PC for remedial) training.
The number of shots/encounter I'm quoting are from the last publicly available NYPD Police Firearms Discharge Report that I studied. At 33K cops, they make up the bulk of the FBI stats anyway. NYPD incidentally, is meteculous in their stat keeping. The widely publicized old stats included AD/ND/UD incidents, suicides, putting down critters and other discharges that weren't 'gunfights'. The first time NYPD only counted actual BG/GG armed encounters the average number of shots jumped from 2.7 to 4.7. That was before they accounted for 'shootings' and 'gunfights' differently. And yes, the numbers do change somewhat from year to year.
Perhaps the most troubling part of the NYPD report was the section on unintentional discharges. 75% of them happened during what most of us would consider routine handling, including loading/unloading. The disturbing part of the report was that 50% of those UDs causing personal injury, generally of the person handling the weapon.
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As a retired NYPD cop, I can respond here: NYPD cops qualify 2 times a year for 100 rounds a pop. Most NYPD cops are not gun guys. When we went to the 9MM, they said we'd quailfy 4 times a year, then 3 times a year, then twice a year. If you fail, the range officer will often stab your target with his pen and you magically have enough holes to pass. I recall a guy drawing and presenting his model 10, and a both of petrified french fries fell out of his holster. Until 1988, we had spurred hammer revolvers, but the accidents that occured with cops cocking the hammer made the job switch to DAO revolvers. The semi auto's were all given 12 pound trigger pulls and were DAO, also. NYPD cops have piss poor firearms training, and unless you take the time to do it yourself, you're never gonna be moe than basically trained.