Madison Cops Want Personal Rifles

This makes complete sense.

The department wants to assign an AR-15 assault rifle to each of its roughly 300 operations officers, those that routinely patrol the streets or drive squad cars in the line of duty. But the department is about 100 rifles short. The reason behind the push to buy more is to allow each officer to have a weapon that is adjusted for accuracy based on the officer’s size and shooting style.

[...]

Capt. Vic Wahl says the Police Department approached the mayor’s office with the plan, and Mayor Dave Cieslewicz subsequently offered a resolution for the city to buy the weapons, which go for about $1,200 a pop. Officers can then buy the rifles from the city in 52 payroll-deducted payments.

Having an individual weapon is safer for the officer and the public.  Here’s how they do it now. 

Under the current system, one officer adjusts the sights on all of the roughly 200 assault rifles in the department, which are checked out by officers at the beginning of a shift and secured in their squad cars.

While officers train and must show proficiency with “universally sighted” weapons, Wahl says, “they’re never going to be as comfortable or as accurate with a universally sighted one as with an individually sighted one.”

The ninnies are worried about the officers taking them home where they may be stolen or used for nefarious activities.  Of course there’s a chance of that, but the officers should be taking them home on occasion for maintenance and practice.  An officer who is intimately familiar with his or her weapon and has hundreds/thousands of rounds of practice with it at the range will be safer and more accurate than the officer who fires his weapon once a year for certification.  Not to mention that the general public can certainly own the same AR-15s as the police.  If we trust the general public with that right, which we do and should, then it’s silly to worry about our police officers doing the same thing.