Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Why didn't LEO's carry semi-autos before the 90's?

When was it that law enforcement agencies nationwide began switching over from revolvers to semi-automatic pistols? Late 80's, early 90's?
Why did it take so long? Semi's such as the 1911 were around way before then. Was it a reliability issue with earlier semi's?

Some small departments allowed 1911s prior to the 1970s, but when a large department adopted the S&W Model 39-2 (9mm) in the 1970s, it really took off. Many departments followed suit with that model. Beretta's 92 also became a popular adoption in the late 1970s, but many departments held on to their revolvers till the 1980s. NYPD didn't switch till 1993. Glock was just getting very popular at that time, and soon dominated police adoptions.

Most semi autos were not designed to feed anything but FMJ (ball) ammunition, which had long been known to have a very poor track record for stopping people. Revolver ammo was not limited to FMJ and even using older designs such as the +P 38 Special 158-grain LSWC-HP ammunition produced much better results in the field.

That in addition to the fact that departments were dealing with institutionalized thinking. Change is incredibly slow. Most people that are in charge of policy change are older and have been in a position or on a department for a long time and suffer from the "Well if it was good enough for me" syndrome and confirmation bias. Look how long it took to get things like night sights or flashlights on handguns. Today there are still a great many agencies that will not allow police officers to have a flashlight on a handgun or a rifle.

I worked for an agency that had a dumbfugg of an uneducated twit in charge of the firearms program that was adamant about never having lights on rifles or handguns. It took me being involved in a shootout in a darkened building where the badguy had knocked out the lights and I was trying to balance a light in one hand and a rifle in the other to cause the department to change.

Consider the liability of trying to take a hostage rescue shot with an iron sighted rifle in the dark, holding it one handed, while balancing a flashlight, hoping you don't shoot the hostage. All because the guy in charge is stuck in the 1980s and has deliberately handicapped you.

Change is slow. Not due to technology, but due to incompetence of those in charge. That is why change is so slow in law enforcement.

Mackay,

I was wondering why something such as the 1911 didn't get adopt by law enforcement after WWII and stayed with their revolvers. I always thought it was because of 1911's reliability issues. Good feedback!

In my opinion one of the biggest catalyst for change was brought on by the Miami shooting in 1986. The FBI "research" that followed was latched on to by the gun writing world and this was largely due to the fact that the gun writing world was who the FBI sought out to help with their "research" and development of newer, better, duty weapons.

Savvy lawmen did use and love the 1911 and Browning Hi-Power for years but these were mostly relegated to real professionals that belonged to departments or agencies that allowed for such things.

The idea of giving a 1911 or Hi-Power to large departments would fall pretty fugking flat and for good reason. Firearms training for a lot of departments consisted of nothing. I know a guy that took a job as a "summer cop" in the early 80's. This was very common in a lot of towns and cities back in the day. His duty sergeant literally dug around a desk drawer and handed him a Model 10. Then he dug around the pen drawer in the middle of the desk until he found six rounds to give to the "summer help."

As Mackay mentioned, most people don't realize just how incompetent a lot of law enforcement were when it came to firearms and tactics. It was not uncommon in the 70s and 80s for a Chief to forbid the use of speedloaders because they didn't like the aesthetics of the pouches on a duty-belt. There were even places that an officer on probation could not have more than one reload on their belt because they had not yet "earned" a second reload. LOL

Another one of the biggest turning points in firearm culture and training in law enforcement has come from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. A lot of the professionals came back and found careers in teaching, and that teaching was rooted in hard reality. Add to that, that we have the internet and all these combat vets with real world experience can now find out what you really are or were and call you on your bullschit. It has gone a long way toward killing the old and absurd cultures that existed in law enforcement for decade upon decade.

It's actually a pretty fascinating topic when you really start to research it.

I believe NYPD was the last major police department to adopt a semi automatic. they didn’t trust their police officers they thought it would be the wild wild west :-) my brother at the time was street crime/gun squad. For the rest of his career he was not fond of the Glock. he did carry it occasionally still with a Snubby in his waist band. He opted to carry two revolvers, his model 10 and five or six shot Snubby. Back then the projectiles were not very reliable regarding to expansion.

Have you read Glock: The Rise of America's Gun?

It is a fascinating read and goes into great detail how Glock pulled this off.

Highly recommended for anybody interested in guns, or business:

https://www.amazon.com/Glock-Americas-Paul-M-Barrett/dp/0307719952

Lots of wisdom there.

I saw a few departments with a .357/38 policy for officers so that ammo could be standardized. That was a pretty weak argument in itself.

Some departments said you could carry anything 38spl up... One county I worked in, most departments in it, and most cops in those departments carried N Frames from .41 mag to 45Colt, but the majority in that county carried M29's or 629's.

A few of us carried a 1911 some in the 80's.

+1 on Mackay_Sagebrush’s comments. Some agencies could STILL be using revolvers. I have first hand experience of an agency just switching to semi autos 3 years ago. It’s an incredibly eye opening experience to train with or observe some who are trained and employed by certain agencies(who personally don’t own handguns or have a background of shooting or hunting)struggle with the weapon manipulation of a semi auto.

Doc_Holidude

Thanks I just ordered it

Back in the day, I had upper brass ask why we needed hollow point ammo, when 158gr LRN worked just fine for all these years...

Ignorance is the hardest thing to overcome. That and ignorance in training.

Everyone shot at the police range with 30spl. It was hammered into them to never let the brass hit the ground when reloading. Either put it in your pocket, or dump it in the brass can by your firing station.

Then a couple of cops were found dead with their empty brass in the pants pockets. Sometimes it takes a graphic example like that to sink the lessons in.

Those of us who carried rifles usually had to get special permission to do so.

You'll love it.

Most of the info comes from the attorneys and marketing teams Glock employed when the company came over.

And Gaston was a pimp. LOL

We have a young guy that we raised here on the ranch, and his mother, 2 sisters and 2 brothers still live and work here, when he Graduated from College, he joined the Texas Dept.Of Safety, AKA the Hi-Way Patrol, Now he is A Texas Ranger, he comes by to see his family and we visit about lots of subjects one is fire arms, today most Texas Rangers carry a 1911, it's more tradition than any thing, they also carry a trunk full of other fire arms, Several Rangers come and shoot on our Rifle and pistol ranges, They shoot more and better than 99% of other law enforcement that shoot here. Rio7

Me too.....

Cost to change over was a major hurdle.

Not the cost of the gun as much as the cost to re-train all the members.
When my old department switched over from Ruger Service Sixes to Glocks it was a 3 day training block for almost 2000 members, so the transition took a couple years.
There was also major resistance within some on the City Common Council and Mayor's office as to the idea of cops having "Semiautomatic" weapons. They control the purse strings.

A lot of police administrators didn't like the fact that a 1911 needed to be carried "clicked and locked" to the average citizen that looked scary.

Traditional police in shooting technique is 10 to 20 years behind the curve

I've had several people come up to me and ask if I knew my pistol was cocked...

Me too. And sometimes when you say "yeah, I know" then you get a safety lecture about how dangerous that is.

I don't let them get that far with the lecture.

When they mention it's cocked, I tell them that's 100% safe and how one is to be carried... Then turn my attention elsewhere.