Thinking Man's Corner

Article by: William G

Modern law enforcement armories need a few things on hand to make everyone’s life a little easier. This article will contain some things I have found helpful over the years, and some considerations on newer developments that are now becoming common with many agencies.

At a bare minimum, agencies should issue two types of guns. A primary duty pistol, and a shoulder fired weapon (which is more increasingly the AR style of rifle/carbine). Some may also issue a shotgun, a backup gun, machine pistols (often referred to as sub machine guns), special short barreled rifles with suppressors, and precision rifles for snipers. Regardless of what is issued, you should consider having the following on hand:

Complete spare copies of each gun issued, that have been test fired, sighted/zeroed, and cleaned prior to being placed in storage. The reason for this is that guns catastrophically break, beyond armorer level repair, due to various reasons. Also, if an officer is involved in a shooting, the gun is generally seized as evidence in the case. In some instances, multiple officers at the scene of a shooting/gunfight, will also have their guns taken as evidence even if they did not fire a shot. If you have 8 officers on scene, and all have their guns taken for evidence, do you have enough in the armory to equip those that can go back on duty before the gun comes back to the agency? When buying guns for the agency, I would recommend buying at least 10% more than your full capacity of sworn officers. Does your agency give the officer his issued gun upon retirement? If so, is it a model that you can ride across town to replace, or is it one that takes 3-4 months to be drop shipped from the factory? Think that your issued gun is easily replaceable? It may not always be, and I have seen some very surprising supply chain issues over the last quarter century.

Now, what about pistols with optics? Properly mounting a pistol optic takes time. You have to degrease the threads, let the glue cure, then torque down to a specific inch pound, then let it sit. So, could take up to 24 hours once you mount a new one. Then you have to zero it. Which also takes time. What if after that 24 hour period, you can’t get the optic to zero, or the gun is malfunctioning? Your 24 hours starts over again. Just because a product comes from the factory sealed in a case, does not mean that it will work right out of the box. Verify prior to trusting, when lives are in the balance.

Magazines are the highest wear item we have. Consider budgeting for every officer to have a set of practice and duty mags. Some manufacturers offer different colored floor plates to distinguish practice and duty mags. If they don’t, use a bright colored paint pen and mark the practice mags. Having a set that can be dropped, abused, and then taken out of rotation prior to leaving the range will yield longer service and more reliability to your duty guns.

Spare parts should not be discounted either. Generally, the most replaced parts are springs. If you replace a recoil spring, you should replace the firing pin spring at the same time. Some springs are know to break, such as trigger return springs, and firing pin block springs and extractor springs compress more so than others. Firing pins can get broken or bent, and extractors can chip or get blown out. Contact your factory rep or armorer instructor to get a list of the most recommended replacement parts, and have them on hand before you have an issue. These parts can take long periods of time to replace in some instances, plan ahead. I would say get a recommended spare parts kit for every 15-20 guns you have, but more if your budget allows. Don’t neglect a few spare holsters, and weapon mounted lights while you are at it, and also consider having extra batteries on hand.

Now if your agency only issues a primary handgun and a shoulder fired weapon, do you allow personal backup guns or other long guns? You should, for a lot of reasons. But, let’s look at those.

If you allow a back up gun, or shotgun, should you issue ammo for them? Not necessarily, but you should have an approved list of ammo the officer is allowed to carry on duty. You also have to have some consideration on armorer services for those guns. For state certification purposes, someone will have to inspect those guns. If you, or a friendly nearby agency do not have armorer’s for those guns, you will have to ship them off to the factory every year for inspection. Maybe a good idea to limit the list of approved guns, or go ahead and figure out how your logistics will work. Let me state that back up guns are an excellent idea, and highly encouraged. So are shotguns, as they are still highly viable, and well suited for their specific purposes.

What are you doing for animal control? Does your jurisdiction have dedicated animal control? Are they available 24 hours a day? What about smaller rural agencies where the officer is expected to handle pest problems? Consider issuing, or allowing other guns for that specific purposes. The 22lr rifle is excellent for certain things like snakes or terminally injured animals. Shotgun birdshot can work great for snakes as well. Some larger animals may need to euthanized with a larger round, such as a 12ga slug. Yet, some areas have wild boar, bear, and other large creatures that require an even more powerful round. There are no quadrupeds in the continental United States that can not be taken with a .308 with the proper loading. 30-30 may work fine in most instances in Georgia, and 45-70 may get the nod in other parts of the country. Just a consideration, you really don’t want to fire off a 9mm in a garage at a snake, with children around if you can help it. Same goes for a terminally wounded dog on a residential street at 10 o’clock at night, at least not when there are better options.

As usual, this is all my experience, and it may or may not work for you and your agency. The goal is just to get you thinking about these things before they happen to you, and you have to rush for a solution.