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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.

Posted by Owen at 0920 hrs
Firearms + Law + Politics + Politics - Wisconsin

1. I think it is a good idea.  We want those cops to be as accurate as possible with rifles to reduce the possibility of the wrong guy getting shot.  My only quarrel is how this article refers to the rifles.  The news media can’t resist labeling them “assault rifles”.  I know, its the far left kooks at the Capitol Times but they are all the same.  I don’t believe they will be getting select fire weapons, just semi-auto rifles that are available to all of us.  The definition of a Assault Rifle is a rifle of medium power that is capable of semi and full auto fire.  But to the media who are willing sycophants of the anti-2nd Amendment crowd any cosmetically impaired rifle is an assault rifle.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 10, 2009 at 1006 hrs
   
   
   

2. It isn’t silly to worry about a police force having AR-15s.  They are a police force, not an army.  At $1200/gun we are talking $360,000 for weapons for which they have no need and by their own admission have used exactly once, and then only to kill a man with a pellet gun.

   If you wish the police to be treated with the respect afforded a police force then train and arm them as a police force.  If you wish them to be treated as an occupying army, then train and arm them as an army.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 10, 2009 at 1102 hrs
   
   
   

3. BVBigBro is really right!
   It’s in their own interests not to have that guns!
   It’ll be better just for our security and safety!

   Posted by Polish guy on October 10, 2009 at 1300 hrs
   
   
   

4. If the policy is for officers to have their sidearms assigned to them, then the same should be true for the AR-15s.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 10, 2009 at 1327 hrs
   
   
   

5. I’m all for this. I know a few officers who have gone ahead and bought their own AR-15s because they can’t trust the ones they would check out for their shift. Its the same thing with their sidearms, they buy what they want based on the police/sheriffs departments regulations. The only thing I see going on here is the City is fronting the money for the officers to buy the rifles. The officers then have to pay it back in a year (assuming they get paid weekly).

   BVBigBro, After what happened LA in 1998 I think its in the best interest for us to give the necessary tools to all officers so they can prevent that from happening again. I never EVER want to see our police forces out gunned AGAIN.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 10, 2009 at 2213 hrs
   
   
   

6. I disagree, the officer who sights the rifles in is probably much better trained to do that compared to the average street officer.  The military AR-15, A2 carbine the cops are using is accurate and the sights are usually adjusted to be right on at 100 yards, despite the user’s size.  The stock has adjustments for length so tall and short people can set it for their size.  The sights are right on for 95% of users as long as one holds it properly.

   A combat soldier may adjust the rear sight for 200 or 300 yard shots by clicking up several clicks of the sight.  A cop is rarely shooting beyond 100 yards in most jurisdictions.  Longer jobs or hazard entry jobs are SWAT guys duty, not street cops.

   The AR-15 is so fun to shoot, the Madison cops just want more so they get more range time in training on the rifle.  The tax payers need not indulge this whim.  LA shoot guys with bad guys in body armor using full autos are rare and not enough to give Madison or Milwaukee cops more costly weapons.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 10, 2009 at 2242 hrs
   
   
   

7. Just more militarization of police forces.  Frivolous spending.  But if its good for the goose its good for the gander. 

   If the Madison PD feels this is such a necessity…  if they acknowledge the need to be well armed for safety then why do they arrest law abiding folks for walking down state street with legally openly carried sidearm?  Fucking hypocrites. 

   Police departments are heading down the wrong road.  They have become reliant on tazers instead of de-escalating situations verbally.  They disarm law-abiding citizens claiming they don’t need weapons yet turn around and demand EBR’s for themselves because of threats to safety.  Off-base on so many levels.

   It will be great when instead of off-duty police officers recklessly lobbing lead down public streets in densely populated urban areas from their handguns at cars driving AWAY from them they can instead pull out something more inappropriate to endanger the public:  http://www.nbc15.com/state/headlines/63853322.html

   I’m allowed to use my weapon to defend myself.  Somehow I don’t think I’d get a free pass on shooting down the street tv-police-show style at a fleeing petty burglar.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 11, 2009 at 1121 hrs
   
   
   

8. tbones05 - its about sight picture.  The only proper way to hold an AR-15 is the way that feels most comfortable to the man shooting it.  It is almost impossible for two people to have the same sight picture.  When I lay my check on the stock and look through the peep, my cheek and my eye will not be in the same place as the last guy who used it.  The peep sight draws a line between three points only two of those points are on the rifle.  The third one is in your head. 

   Can you shoot fairly accurately with a rifle that is simply zeroed or bore sighted by someone else? Yes.  But why would you choose a method that is less safe and less accurate?  Especially when the cops are going to pay for the rifles out of pocket. 

   Of course whether the MPD needs AR-15’s is a different question all together.  Not sure I believe that they do.  Its Madison, not LA or NY or the ATL.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 11, 2009 at 1434 hrs
   
   
   

9. I think a lot of people are missing the point, the officers are paying for these weapons not the Taxpayers other than to front the money. The officers are going to pay back their $1200 “loan” in 52 installments.

   I also don’t see how this is “militarizing” the police force. There is quite a big difference between doing police work and what our military does. It seems it scares some people that the people we ask to protect us are given a tool necessary to carry out some of the duties he/she may have to do. I know of a number of officers in Michigan that have AR-15/M4’s and they had to buy them without the help of their Department. They have used them in a number of Bank Robberies that they have had to respond to and were glad they had the weapon thinking back to what happened in LA.

   Its just a Big Scary Gun to some people I guess…

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 11, 2009 at 1732 hrs
   
   
   

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