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

They went with the H&k P7m13s

They didn’t want guys carrying a single action, is what I was told. Stress= accidental discharges…

Not everyone is a shootist.

A lot of police departments didn't even want officers carrying .357 Magnums.... "Magnum!!! That's so scary! It'll frighten the public! It'll look like we're out to kill people!" Even if you had a .357, you were often required to only use department issued .38spl. These types of administrators would have had their heads explode if they saw one of their officers with a 13-shot auto pistol!

My NRA handgun instructor in 1980 (who was a retired Deputy Sheriff) told me his son was an officer in the NYPD. He told me that what he did, and which was common practice on the force, was to carry his issue Model 10 S&W in his duty holster, but as a "backup gun" (which they were authorized to carry, and could carry whatever they wanted to) he carried a Beretta 92 IWB. He said that if he was ever called upon to draw a gun, it would be the Beretta, not the Model 10. That's how regular NYPD street cops got around the requirement to carry the Model 10 as their service weapon.

Price was probably a factor too.

In them days there wasn’t a lot of reasonably priced autos until Glock hit the market. 1911’s weren’t cheap, Browning’s weren’t either. Smith’s, i don’t remember much about them, although I had a 459 for a brief time.

Glocks were easier to transition to from a revolver, no safety to manipulate….point and click.

Unfortunately transitioning from a 12# DA pull weight to the original Glock trigger pull weight led to negligent discharges. Also using a holster that isn't compatible with a Glock can be a disaster. Glocks are a good pistol. Glock pricing and marketing led to the Glock being everywhere overnight.

When I lived in Albuquerque 64-74, police were nor permitted to carry .357 ammo.Knowing one very well he asked me to work up a load in a 38 sp case that was probably a +P or better. I did so and you could not tell the difference between them and a commercial round looking at them.It ended up about 1/2 dozen officer carried them.

This particular LEO was only one of a very few that qualified to carry a single action revolver as a duty weapon. If any one doubts me, I can give his .

The agencies issued revolvers……most officers could not afford a semi or did not have the knowledge to realize the benefits! JMO memtb

The case capacity of the .38 Special is enough to duplicate .357 Magnum. The only reason they lengthened the case for the .357 Magnum was to prevent anyone from using them in a .38 Special revolver.

The Illinois State Police was the first major law enforcement department to switch to semi-auto handgun. In 1967 they began issuing the S&W Model 39 and all troopers carried this until 1999 when they switched the the Glock 22.

Good gosh, why did it take so many other agencies so long to switch over? It couldn't have been a reliability issue, as the S&W 39's ran pretty good from what I've read.
Probably just too much beauracracy in the various departments.

In the early-mid 80's in S. Florida a police department had recently been issued new DA/SA S&W wonder nines, I don't recall the specific model.

Jump forward a couple of months to a briefing about juvenile crime with a room full of officers. One officer in the back, deciding to be a smart-ass, removed the magazine from his new semi-auto, jumped up and said, "I'll show you how to handle juvenile crime!", pointed the gun at the front of the room and pulled the trigger while yelling "bang! bang!", thereby firing the round left in the chamber into the wall a few feet to one side of the lecturer.

After the hubbub died down the lecturer was curious about where the bullet had ended up so he went around a hall to the spot he figured would be right behind the briefing room. It was a women's bathroom. He knocked and on receiving no answer opened the door and went in to find a woman slumped in a stall, dead, shot in the back of the head through the wall.

That's a true story. This has nothing to do with why it took so long for police officers to start carrying semi-autos.


I also have an anecdote from the Dania police department around the same time frame, early 1980's, about an officer who accidentally shot two police cars with his service revolver within the span of a week, from inside the car.

Yes, yes I can.

I'm a southpaw. This is a pic of my duty belt and revolver from 1984.

That State Department budget only so large, MM.

LOL

Yeah, they run on a shoestring budget.....more or less.....grin

glock saves lives.

"In a only four minutes a staggering amount of rounds were fired, over 125. Platt was struck 12 times and Matix six before they were finally put down. Both men had no alcohol or drugs in their system."

Love mine. Not a jam yet. Cool classic, too.

Damn.