Sonoma County D.A.: No criminal charges for sheriff's deputy in Andy Lopez shooting

[happyslug]

9. Another example of why police officers should carry revolvers not automatics

This victim was hit by seven 9mm hollow point bullets. He never stood a chance of living with that many rounds going through his body. If these had been Full metal jacket rounds, he may have survived, but hollow points just tear up the inside of a body. bouncing all over the place after expanding to twice its caliber upon impact with the body.

The main objection to revolvers is that they contain six rounds AND you have to pull the trigger with the same pull each time you shoot and the pull includes not only getting the round into position to be fired, but cocking the hammer. Those actions are powered by someone pulling the trigger and that additional pull on the trigger slows down one's firing. Given that the average shooting involving a police officer is two rounds, revolvers are more then enough for most police work.

Till the 1980s Police Officers preferred revolvers for revolvers are NOT picky about ammunition. If the hammer falls on a dead round, all you have to do is pull the trigger to get another round to fire. In an automatic you have to work the action to get the dead round out of the chamber and get a live round into the Chamber. For this reason prior to about 1980 most police preferred revolvers. This preference went back to the turn of the 20th century when ammunition was NOT as reliable as people claimed. This was especially true of police departments who thought nothing of using 20 to 30 year old ammo, for it was in stock. About 1980 police started to switch to Automatics for increase fire power for most police departments had stopped buying surplus 38 special ammunition in the 1960s (and much of that ammunition was made in the 1940s during WWII under less then ideal conditions). Remember bad 38 special rounds may not fire, but they will NOT make the weapon unusable, bad 9mm and 35 auto ammo will make the weapon unusable until the action is manually operated.

Thus about 1980 you started to see more and more American Police with Automatics. Reports I have read state that about 7-8 % of police officers retain their revolvers when that option was open to them.

In most police work, a revolvers is all you need, it provides three times the average shoot out rounds (remember the average police shooting is only two rounds, a revolver holds six). Being manually operated, it slows down the number of rounds fired, and in many situation, as in this one, that may have made the difference between killing someone and merely wounding him. Yes, if the other side has an automatic, they would have fire superiority, but in most cases police can call for assistance if out gunned. A revolver is good enough to hold out in most such situations till more police arrive.

Yes, I have read about the FBI shootout in Florida where two criminals took out several FBI agents, but in that case the situation was pistols vs rifles and shotguns, used by people who knew how to use that rifle and shotgun. The problems was NOT revolvers vs automatics like a lot of people like to say about that shoot out, the problem was pistols vs Rifles and Shotguns. In such a fight put your money on the Rifles and Shotguns vs the Pistols, and that is true if the rifles are bolt action rifles and pump shotguns vs automatic pistols. I only bring that shoot out up for the simple reason it is NOT why Automatics should be used instead of Revolvers, but it is often cited for that very cause. That shoot out is an example of NOT going up against rifles or shotguns with pistols. That the pistols in that shoot out were revolvers was a minor part of that debacle.

My point is if this officer had a revolver he would only have been able to fire six rounds instead of the eight he did fire (one round missed). Furthermore it would have taken him more effort and more time to fire those six rounds, so the victim may have fallen to the ground before he fired all six rounds and once on the ground the officer would have stopped firing (Thus even less rounds would have been fired).

I am sorry, front line police should have Revolvers only. If they need greater fire power, they can call it in, or pull a rifle from the trunk of their car (I do advocate having M-16s in patrol cars in cases where police need greater fire power, the M16 will provide them greater firepower in a weapon that is more controllable then a pistol).

In this case, if the victim had had a real AK-47 and planned to shoot the officers, the officers could have taken him down with Revolvers while before that AK-47 could have been brought to bare. Thus revolvers would have worked as while in this shoot out as the automatics, and in some ways, less bullets being fired, may be better.