sarge: 1970S AND 1980S .. During that time, the revolver was king. Police officers throughout the eastern United States were issued, by and large, six-shot fixed-sight .38 Special revolvers.. military guys had an affection for the Colt 1911 semi-auto handgun - ‘the .45’ - and some old timers still even carried single action revolvers in some western outposts.
I know you're focusing on police transition from revolvers to semi-auto handguns, but I will digress a bit & focus on the concurrent development of the semi-automatic handgun in civilian land. Related and all that you know. Often using past posts.
My main point, as hypothesis, is the concommitant rise in violent crime & murder rates, with the rise in production & development of the semi-auto firearm, specifically semi-auto pistol, from the early 60's.
DoJ/BJS, note that post 1986 dates coincide with what your essay noted: During the two decades from 1973 to 1993, the types of handguns most frequently produced have changed. Most new handguns are pistols rather than revolvers. Pistol production grew from 28% of the handguns produced in 1973 to 80% in 1993.
The number of large caliber pistols produced annually increased substantially after 1986. Until the mid-1980's, most pistols produced were .22 and .25 caliber models.
Production of .380 caliber and 9 millimeter pistols began to increase substantially in 1987, so that by 1993 they became the most frequently produced pistols. http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/GUIC.PDF
violent crime rate ..... murder rate {US}
1964 ... 190 ............ 4.9 -nat gunstock doubled by ~1975, as did murder rate
1973 ... 417 .............. 9.4
1980 ... 597 ............. 10.2
1985 ... 557 ............... 8.0
1987 ... 610 ............... 8.3 see BJS above on semi-auto pistols prod rise
1988 ... 637 ............... 8.4
1989 ... 663 ............... 8.7
1990 ... 732 ............... 9.4
1991 ... 758 ............... 9.8
1992 ... 757 ............... 9.3 Gun ownership rates start dramatic fall ~35% thru 2000
1993.... 747 ............... 9.5 Rise from '87 along with semi-autos
2000 ... 506 ............... 5.5 http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
Today, the proportion of all revolver-stock vs. semi-auto handgun-stock evidently isn't that much different, due to pre existing revolvers; what I mean is about the same total number today, despite the increase in popularity & production of SA.
jul 2015, jimmy the one's hypothesis: semi-auto handgun production increased dramatically from the early 60s' thru the early 90's, and contributed to the concomitant rise in violent crime rates.
Reviewing population stats & approx. gunstock totals:
...... population ........... nat gunstock ..... nat handgunstock (estimates)
1960 .. 189,323,175 .. ~'64, 75 mill .......... ('64) ~25 mill
1970 .. 213,302,031 .. ~'76, 150 mill ........ ('76) ~50 mill
1990 .. 258,709,873 .. ~225 mill ..................... ~75 mill
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1172&pid=172178
JTO wrote: The doubling in both the national gunstock & homicide rate, as well as concommitant near tripling the nat violent crime rate between early 1960's & mid 1970's, helps refute that guns were bought to defer violent crime, but were likely a contributing cause of it, since the steep rise in violent crime couldn't be foreseen at a concomitant rate with semi-auto (or any) gun purchases. Doesn't work that way.
Of course there could've been some influence due violent crime rate rise, but came several years later, & was instigated by emboldening criminally minded which semi-auto possession provided.
Also, if it were true that violent crime created handgun demand there wouldn't've been semi-auto demand in low populated low violent pro-gun crime states.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1172&pid=172750
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