APD to buy 350-plus AR-15 rifles

[Savannahmann]

14. Really? I mean that seriously.

Let's talk ballistics shall we?" The AR-15 fires the 5.56mm round. The maximum effective range is about 800 Meters, or yards if you prefer. The maximum range for the standard round is 3,600 meters. That is close to three quarters of a mile. I can't find the range of the .40 cal pistol, the standard used pistol of the cops, but I did find 9mm, and astonishingly, it is only 1,800 Meters. That is about half as far that the bullet that misses the target could conceivably hurt someone.

So if while you are using it in a stressful situation, chances are that you are missing your target, historically the military in Iraq, who one would assume are just as well trained as a police officer in shooting situations, fired 250,000 rounds per kill. http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/us-forced-to-import-bullets-from-israel-as-troops-use-250000-for-every-rebel-killed-28580666.html

On the other hand, shotgun patterns spread out, and that means that even if your aim is not exact, you're more likely to hit the suspect with at least part of the pattern of buckshot than you are from the single round from your safer rifle. That means while you would have more projectiles in the air from a single shot, you may only have to fire one shot to stop the suspect. That shot would not travel more than 3,000 meters. It would not penetrate body armor, but how many of your suspects are wearing body armor these days? I only ask because in all my travels around town I'm not noticing such things, and I'm wondering if I should be considering buying some from ebay or whatever.

So we can pretty much assume that you won't be firing one shot, one kill like in the movies if it is a real situation. Florida cops were in the news for firing 377 rounds at two unarmed men. I'll skip the unarmed bit, and go with the 377 rounds to stop two people for this discussion. So giving them a round that can travel up to three quarters of a mile away is not something I feel terribly comfortable with. Not when the boys in blue are firing rounds like they are in a competition to see who can empty their magazine first.

So far, I'm leaning towards the pistol, as it seems to be less dangerous to those of us around the police officer when he misses the target, which he probably will.

But let's look at penetration. Depending on the type of ammunition you use, the penetration from a 5.56 rifle would be significantly more than a pistol or even buckshot. You said yourself, that the rifle will go through body armor. So my question is this. After you miss the target, a certainty to be honest, how many apartments are at risk when your "safer" rifle blasts through as it continues on it's merry way? Obviously pistol rounds being unable to penetrate the aforementioned body armor would not go through as many apartments right?

OK, so we've seen that your "safer" choice isn't so safe after all. At least not for the rest of us. Those of us downrange from the scene of the shooting. So how about in those active shooter situations? Perhaps your suggestion is that the lunatic Adam Lanza could be stopped by a cop with a rifle. OK, let's talk about the wisdom of even considering charging into a school full of kids where the lunatic has a rifle just like the one you're talking about all the cops having, spraying rounds about. I'm not so comfortable with the idea of 5.56 rounds going through the walls as the police blast away in the school with an assault rifle that is almost certainly fully automatic capable.

Now, here's the facts. Violent Crime is at an all time low. http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/06/11/12170947-fbi-violent-crime-rates-in-the-us-drop-approach-historic-lows?lite

30 police officers died from gunfire in 2013. http://www.odmp.org/search/year?year=2013

I count 45 people killed by police in January 2013. I didn't bother to count the rest of the year, I enjoyed my dinner the first time, I doubt that I'd like it the second time I tasted it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States_2013

Perhaps you'll feel like counting them all.

So more people were killed by police in January 2013 than police officers who died by gunfire during the entire year. Factually speaking still, a police officer is more likely to die in an automobile related incident, crash, struck by driver, assaulted by driver, and pursuit crashes, than death by gunfire. Again, these are the facts. So instead of buying all the cops one of these "safer" rifles that turns out to be far from safe, why don't we figure out a way to get the cops to wear seat belts. I used to drive cross country trucks. I almost never saw a cop wearing a seat belt, Perhaps that is why they are dying in otherwise minor and survivable auto accidents.

In summation. The Safer rifle is more dangerous. It's more dangerous to bystanders, and people behind the individual being shot at for a much longer distance. It's more dangerous further down the apartment complex, as the rifle round will penetrate far more walls before stopping than the pistol or shotgun rounds. The Shotgun has a built in error correction in the pattern spread, that the rifle or pistol does not have. Finally, with falling violent crime rates, I have to wonder why our police are equipping up to a point that our soldiers are drooling with envy at the quality of equipment that you guys are toting about? We aren't talking about a response to some crime spree, nor about how to react to a massive increase in crime rates. Crime is down, and the obvious question is if there are fewer violent criminals, why do you need a state of the art Rambo mark nine battle rifle that is the envy of the soldiers in the actual army?