Question.How did the .32 ever make its way as a Police round ?

[Laketime]

I couldn't find anything in a search.How did lawman go from the .45 black powder, and other more potent rounds to the .32.this has always puzzled me as a choice for Law Enforcement.And no I would not want to get hit with one,but it does seem under powered for the role of stopping armed criminals.

 

[Erich]

You'd have to ask New York Police Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt, who is on record as liking big sticks. NYPD standardized on the .32 S&W Long under his command - it is a superbly accurate round, FWIW. Maybe that had something to do with it.

Given some of the news stories I see about NYPD shootings involving many dozens of rounds flying past the BG into the crowded city, perhaps that's not a bad consideration.

 

[JSR III]

Question.How did the .32 ever make its way as a Police round ?

It was right after they decided that the .22 wasn't powerful enough

 

[lebomm]

I would guess that it had something to do with the idea, at the time, that shooting a policeman was an act so unspeakably heinous, that none but the most depraved scofflaw would even consider it. So the .32, with its mediocre power level and superior accuracy was considered adequate.
Just a guess, mind you.

Larry

 

[Modified]

I would suspect that a lawman who was carrying a .45 long colt going to smokeless powder would have selected something like .44 Special, or maybe later a .38 Heavy Duty or .357 Magnum.

The thing is .38 S&W was (and still is in India) a police round, so was .32 S&W. I think in certain places in the past neighborhood beat cops were part of the neighborhood, and they didn't really want to kill any of their neighbors. A .32S&W Long is a pretty good tool for dissuasion, if not a lethal one.

Another thing to keep in mind is that there have been policemen who consider a gun just a tool, and a tool that they want to be as light and light recoiling as possible. A regulation police is a pretty fine choice in that regard.

Our notions of man stopping have changed a bit over the years, with the prevalence of things like Meth and Bath Salts having enough cartridge to stop a man is more important then it once was.

Also, as just a side note. I think as a pocket gun the little 32 hand ejectors are a wonderful little pocket gun, and had they figured out how to safely chamber them in .38SPL back in 1903 the would have completely dominated the carry gun market forever. Owning and carrying one of those may also have influenced some lawmen.

 

[italiansport]

New York City at the time of the Colt Police Positive and the 32S&W Long was far different then it is today. From what I understand; a pistol was considered more of a badge of authority like a night stick that a weapon.
Jim

 

[rburg]

You view things from the current perspective. Take a step back and move your frame of reference to the late 1800s. And then consider the ambulances and emergency rooms at the time. Simply put, getting shot with anything would often be fatal. Medicine from the time wasn't any more advanced than gun technology. If the gun lacked stopping power as we define it today, it would still kill you pretty effectively. Maybe just not as fast or painlessly.

So next time you pick up a 32 long, look at the soft lead bullet with the yucky grease and wax. Think about some fool carrying it in his lint filled pocket, the one that didn't get washed every wearing as is the custom today. That stuff got carried along into the wound channel. It then festered and the medicine you were offered was opium or alcohol. You got an infection and then died over a week or so, usually with significant pain. Good times.

 

[KarmannGhia]

Remember, people were not as "thick" back then. Today's ammo is required to penetrate more fat and muscle.

 

[BigCityChief]

You'd have to ask New York Police Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt, who is on record as liking big sticks. NYPD standardized on the .32 S&W Long under his command - it is a superbly accurate round, FWIW. Maybe that had something to do with it.

Given some of the news stories I see about NYPD shootings involving many dozens of rounds flying past the BG into the crowded city, perhaps that's not a bad consideration.

Just as a point of information, Roosevelt never actually held the title of "Police Commissioner" - the title bestowed on those appointed as Head of Agency by the NYC Mayor. He was indeed a "Commissioner," while serving as a member of the Police Commission, an oversight board of 3 members during his tenure.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Erich]

Well explained, my friend.

 

[Iggy]

.32s and & .38s seemed to do the job quite well until Elmer Keith and Jeff Cooper told us how puny they were.

After that, if it wasn't a magnum or started with a 4, poor old cops didn't have a chance.

Of course the size of Americans has grown along with the caliber of the rounds used in hand guns too.

 

[ISCS Yoda]

I do think the guns were very much a symbol of authority at the time and that the idea of harming a police officer was fairly heinous. But "new" is also important - new, reliable double action handguns in this caliber could easily have appeared to be an up to date great idea.

The reverse of all of this is also possibly true - the old guns were massive and heavy and carrying a less conspicuous, lighter gun might have seemed like a good idea.

I am totally uncertain about what they knew in terms of stopping power in the civilian world at the time; the military knew.....

***GRJ***

 

[rwsmith]

I'm not sure.....

The .32 did in a lot of people, some famous, back then. I'm not sure what the velocity of the old .32 rounds were, but they seemed to work. They may have been as effective as the short .38 pistol cartridges at the time.

 

[Laketime]

My great great uncle carried an American Bulldog in .32 rim fire.He worked as security on the railroads at the turn of the century.I inherited that gun several years ago ,and have sinced past it on to another family member.

 

[BAM-BAM]

No need to shoot through car bodies or windshields......... back in the day.....

remember many carried .22 rimfires in the........ not so Civil War.

A gentleman carried a .25 Colt pocket auto.....................up until WWII.

Officers "walked" a beat....... try that with a Heavy Duty.......

No one wants to get shot....................

 

[Autococker07]

I wonder if they had "45 colt is way to heavy and slow.... 32 is lighter and faster, and that is always better" discussions like we had in the sixties (M14-to-M16) and eighties (45ACP-to-9mm).... I know i would rather carry it on a beat, and I am sure overall accuracy increased with the recoil reduction, but I bet the guys left the 32's at home when they went after Bonnie and Clyde south of Gibsland...

 

[cmichini]

Parents typically raised people back then, not the slew of rabid animals pumped out by bad parents in modern times.
Hence the lack of a need for heavy firepower.

 

[H Richard]

it wasn't just the U S, in Europe the .32 acp was pretty much a standard police load.

 

[Jim Watson]

TR standardized the NYPD on the Colt New Police .32 in 1896.
Same year the S&W .32 Hand Ejector came out. I think it was several years before Colt adopted the .32 S&W Long as the .32 NP. If so, caliber would have been .32 Long Colt.

In the days before antibiotics, a .32 might not have had much "stopping power" but it was a killer, especially for a criminal who might be reluctant to go to a hospital.

 

[cmj8591]

Police in those days were not too far removed from the unarmed English bobbies who they had descended from. The handgun was an after thought after the night stick and the sap or black jack. In fact, most city cops didn't even use a holster. When they carried a gun, they usually just stuck it in their pocket. Also, in the urban areas, most of the population was very poor immigrants who couldn't afford to own a gun. There really wasn't a lot of gun crime in those days. Police shootings were very rare. (Remember, I'm talking about law enforcement in the urban areas at the turn on the century not the wild west, which was a different story.) Carrying a handgun didn't really become commonplace for cops until after WW II. Even then, it was still a secondary tool. You were more apt to get beaten with a night stick than shot by a policeman. The subject of stopping power for police handguns really wasn't an issue until several high profile police shoot outs in the 60's that didn't go very well for the cops. The concept of police firearms and training has really only evolved over the past 20 or so years.

 

[Laketime]

Police in those days were not too far removed from the unarmed English bobbies who they had descended from. The handgun was an after thought after the night stick and the sap or black jack. In fact, most city cops didn't even use a holster. When they carried a gun, they usually just stuck it in their pocket. Also, in the urban areas, most of the population was very poor immigrants who couldn't afford to own a gun. There really wasn't a lot of gun crime in those days. Police shootings were very rare. (Remember, I'm talking about law enforcement in the urban areas at the turn on the century not the wild west, which was a different story.) Carrying a handgun didn't really become commonplace for cops until after WW II. Even then, it was still a secondary tool. You were more apt to get beaten with a night stick than shot by a policeman. The subject of stopping power for police handguns really wasn't an issue until several high profile police shoot outs in the 60's that didn't go very well for the cops. The concept of police firearms and training has really only evolved over the past 20 or so years.

But don't forget all the violence during that time period. New York had the mob wars between the Jewish and the Irish mobsters before the Italians took control of the streets.

 

[DWalt]

Back when I was a wee lad, we had a neighbor who was a Detective in the local PD. All he ever carried was a Colt .25 auto in his pocket. I guess he felt that was all he needed. There wasn't much crime there anyway, being a smallish (about 30,000) Southern Ohio city.

 

[Jim NNN]

I've heard that a lot of shooting competitions of 100 years ago were being won by .32 S&W long shooters due to the round's inherent accuracy, and that influenced NYPD's decision to go with .32 S&W long. Smaller cities wanted to be like New York, so they went with the chambering, too.

Maybe it was a case of too many stray bullets hitting too many innocent bystanders - might be more of a problem in more densely populated areas. That's just speculation on my part, though.

 

[Biggfoot44]

CMJ8591 is on the right track. We can look back at the various Western and southern Apilacian gunfighting lawmen of the era with serious hardware , but that wasn't the norm for most urban LE .

It wasn't just that T. Rosevelt standardized on the .32 , but that prior to that handguns weren't even required of officers. He also initiated the first training and qualifications. As noted the primary weapons for Ofc were trunchons , saps , and brass nuckles.

LE shooting training did have a couple of earlier paradigms. The T. Rosevekt era introduced the idea of having any training at all. We have look back at one hand bullseye as not very suitable , but it was a huge leap from nothing at all. The PPC era started in the 1930's and remained little changed into at least 1980's , and still recognizable influence in mmany LE COF today. Action shooters in recent years may ridicule , but drawing from holsters , reloading , DA shooting , and using human shaped targets was revolutionary at the time.

 

[Biggfoot44]

And as also noted , until relatively recently the 7.65mm (aka .32acp) was considered the "normal" police cal , like .38spl had in the US . For the most part Eurpopeans considered the handgun mostly a badge of office, not a serious weapon. And when they did feel need for more serious weapondry , they were more likely to issue carbines and smgs instead of larger handguns.

 

[Jim NNN]

The .32 did in a lot of people, some famous, back then. I'm not sure what the velocity of the old .32 rounds were, but they seemed to work. They may have been as effective as the short .38 pistol cartridges at the time.

President William McKinley.

 

[Absalom]

I think we tend to forget that the whole concept of "stopping power" and the obsession with terminal ballistics didn't really exist in earlier times and didn't enter the general debate among shooters (and that would include police officers) until after WW II. In terms of personal weapons, we tend to focus on the famous big guns, but even during the single action cartridge era, the actual number of Colt SAAs and S&W SA .44 and .45 revolvers was dwarfed by the gazillions of cheap, usually top-break .22, .32, and .38 pocket revolvers being churned out by countless manufacturers, which indicates there was demand and people found them adequate. Study historical photos, even of frontier towns, and try to find anyone who seems to carry a substantial handgun; movie cliche nonwithstanding, a little pocket pistol in a vest pocket was much more likely than a big .45 dangling from the belt. Even during the black powder era, by far the most widely produced Colt was not one of the .44's or even .36's, but the little Colt Pocket 1849 in .31.
Add to that the fact that most urban officers, and by the 1890s they made up the majority of American lawmen, did not carry open holsters and had to stow their gun somewhere under a stiff wool frock coat, and something compact and lightweight was very welcome.
So I don't think any officer would have seen the adoption of a .32 revolver in 1896 as a step down; except when riding with a posse into the wilderness, most officers of the law probably had been carrying something along those lines already.

 

[Green Frog]

I think we tend to forget that the whole concept of "stopping power" and the obsession with terminal ballistics didn't really exist in earlier times and didn't enter the general debate among shooters (and that would include police officers) until after WW II. In terms of personal weapons, we tend to focus on the famous big guns, but even during the single action cartridge era, the actual number of Colt SAAs and S&W SA .44 and .45 revolvers was dwarfed by the gazillions of cheap, usually top-break .22, .32, and .38 pocket revolvers being churned out by countless manufacturers, which indicates there was demand and people found them adequate. Study historical photos, even of frontier towns, and try to find anyone who seems to carry a substantial handgun; movie cliche nonwithstanding, a little pocket pistol in a vest pocket was much more likely than a big .45 dangling from the belt. Even during the black powder era, by far the most widely produced Colt was not one of the .44's or even .36's, but the little Colt Pocket 1849 in .31.
Add to that the fact that most urban officers, and by the 1890s they made up the majority of American lawmen, did not carry open holsters and had to stow their gun somewhere under a stiff wool frock coat, and something compact and lightweight was very welcome.
So I don't think any officer would have seen the adoption of a .32 revolver in 1896 as a step down; except when riding with a posse into the wilderness, most officers of the law probably had been carrying something along those lines already.

Weren't the Thompson-LaGarde Tests conducted sometime just prior to or just after WW I? That was the first time that stopping power or some variant thereof seems to have been studied and evaluated in a scientific manner (IIRC.) But then again, this was for military consumption, not for use on civilians by civilians.

I default to the statements above that the average cop on the beat would indeed have been more likely to resort to a truncheon/night stick or a sap as a "pacifier" and only even draw a firearm in extreme circumstances.

BTW, I read somewhere that "gun violence" was actually more prevalent in NYC than the "Wild West" (per capita) prior to the days of TR, but I can't find a source... does anyone else remember reading anything like this?

Froggie

PS Just checked out the T-L Tests on Wikipedia... they were conducted using various handgun rounds first on cattle at a slaughterhouse then on human cadavers as sort of "ballistic pendulums" later in the testing. I'm guessing that the experiences in the Philippines with the 38 Colt revolver on drugged up tribesmen may have inspired these tests.

 

[DWalt]

"Weren't the Thompson-LaGarde Tests conducted sometime just prior to or just after WW I? That was the first time that stopping power or some variant thereof seems to have been studied and evaluated in a scientific manner (IIRC.)"

There was very little scientific about the Thompson-LaGarde tests. In one of the older Gun Digests, there is a very complete account of exactly how the cattle tests were performed. If you read it, it becomes clear that they were making up their test program as they went along, and nothing conclusive actually resulted from it. The plan was more like "Hey, let's go out and shoot a bunch of cows and see what happens!"

 

[Absalom]

Weren't the Thompson-LaGarde Tests conducted sometime just prior to or just after WW I? That was the first time that stopping power or some variant thereof seems to have been studied and evaluated in a scientific manner (IIRC.) But then again, this was for military consumption, not for use on civilians by civilians.
.

I think you hit the key point here. Before mass market gun magazines and books discussed these topics widely, I don't think this was much on civilian gun owners' radar, and that includes cops. You shot someone, and they either dropped or they didn't, not unlike today, but there was no "public forum" where shooting incidents were analyzed for weapon effectiveness by gun writers or, more recently, gun bloggers and other "instant experts". I don't remember any of the classic accounts of the OK Corral even mentioning what guns and calibers were used except Doc's shotgun. And just like today, most officers back then probably never had occasion to shoot someone and find out how effective their caliber was.
Another example that illustrates this comes from Colt history: Colt introduced the Police Positive in .38 Police in 1907; within a year, the Police Positive Special and Army Special chambered in the much more potent .38 Special caliber were introduced, yet the original Police Positive in the weaker caliber enjoyed great popularity with major police departments for several more decades, being produced into the 1940s.