Here we go again...
Your statement suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of how a dot should be used on a defensive/combat handgun, and the benefits it provides. And law enforcement is NOT using dots to slow cops down. Dots are being used to
improve performance.
The primary benefit of a dot is allowing a
threat focused sight picture... you never focus on the dot, like you would on a front sight and you keep both eyes open. Shooters
are slower when first transitioning because they are still in the habit of bringing their focus back to the gun, looking for the front sight. Once you attain competence with a handgun mounted optic, you will be
faster because you are only looking at the target. The problem is it takes time to break long ingrained habits/skills and the longer you have been shooting, the more time it takes. Many don't have the patience, or fail to put in the time.
As an LE instructor since the 1990s, I've seen a lot of fads come and go. Handgun optics are not one of them. We got serious about the training a few years before I retired. In those few years I taught several hundred LE shooters to use dot sights, both in basic academy and in-service training, and I have personally observed that speed
and accuracy was improved in almost every case.
For anyone interested in why dot sights work, and how they can improve your shooting, I suggest reading Aaron Cowan's white paper on the subject:
http://www.kentuckytacticalofficers.../sage_dynamics_pistol_red_dot_white_paper.pdf
You are basically correct to a point. The liability of officers hitting innocent people with multiple wild rounds, particularly in New York City was/is a driving force in why administrators are trying dot sights. They force the officer to get that sight picture in the window, sometimes they even show up on body cams. That puts the officer in a box, if he fires wildly and hits an innocent, he is likely to be fired as well as sued and so on. The department gets sued too, of course. Every lawsuit in federal courts require all interested or likely parties to be joined into the lawsuit.
So, the dot sight "requires" a sight picture within the frame of the dot device. That is usually slower. Your opinion and others may say it is faster, but others including me as a former trainer disagree. the "threat focused sight picture" is a good concept, but in my view is more for center of mass firing. As a federal agent long ago, that is too broad, in the one hostage case I had, a head or shoulder shot was the only rational option, the dot will work for that, and is certainly faster than a iron sight device, and may be the cat's meow for those events. That said, from the legal perspective, the dot sight was a method for preventing lawsuits against the department, and the officer's safety was not the top issue.
Whether it made a difference in the New York problem, I do not know, I am not aware of any New York City officers going to dot sights. If you have that information please post a link.
The white paper by Sage Dynamics exists for exactly one purpose, to sell dot sights to law enforcement and the paper reflects that. Whether they are best for a CCW event is not addressed by their paper at all.
Sage Dynamics is selling a product or program note what they recommend:
"Once a department has decided to approve the use of MRDS for duty handguns, a program must be created to transition from iron sights on officer handguns. It is the
recommendation of Sage Dynamics that a department not make MRDS duty carry mandatory for all officers. As officer time on duty and time to retirement are always considerations, it will be more cost effective and less disruptive for departments to make MRDS use optional for all currently sworn officers."
Their white paper is great but limited to officers and very strictly requires things like both hands on the gun for a proper sight picture. This is very differy nt from a CCW student who will likely face a situation with only one hand on the gun, light or phone or dog on a leash or pushing kids out of the hallway is likely. Or perhaps a mugging or robbery in a parking lot. That dot sight on a CCW gun, held in one hand is slower.....try it.
I have several guns with dot sights and have for maybe 20 years. The most recent is the M and P 5.7 x 28, a cool little gun that you can shoot to 75-100 yards, but it is not for carry or self defense issues. As a trail gun it certainly would work for defensive uses, but when a concealed carry gun, which will normally be fired with one hand at near distances is involved, it is a big chunk of stuff on top of your gun when you are hurriedly trying to get it out to survive.
Forget pocket carry and remember, it can hand up on a seat belt if you try a cross draw of even strong side draw. There are lots of draw backs to a big 1 inch or more box on top of the gun you need out in a hurry.
Just saying, the needs of saving your life with a quick handgun on your body is very different from trying to cut down on lawsuits caused by stray rounds fired by officers.
That is all.
And when you are refencing a gun used in a combat/police scenario, I have been in all of those rolls, 6 years Army MP, and 18 years Air Force, OSI and others and local and state law enforcement. Been there, done that for decades. I do not believe I have that fundamental misunderstanding you suggest. We have all been different places and see different events, which effects our opinions.
