I have a couple of problems with this idea. the camera doesn’t start until 1 second after the pistol is removed from the holster if I read that correctly. The shooting or what brought it on, could be over by the time 1 second is up.
Next is the balance issue. That’s going to require retraining of the entire force to use their weapons accurately.
Lastly, a light? Are you kidding me? Why don’t you just make the cops wear a battery operated vest that says Shoot Me!? Like they say in the military, tracers work both ways. So would this light.
I don’t think most cops object to cameras in general - the dash cams have proven to be quite well accepted. It’s just that mounting them on the gun itself presents problems, as we detailed in posts above.
Not to mention shock and recoil issues with the camera. Mounting it on the gun itself sounds like a key to failure. I’d… hm.
Ring+shoulder mount, say, so when you draw the gun and the RFID triggers the ring, the camera starts.
Eventually, sooner than you think, pretty much all cops are going to have personal cameras running whenever they’re on duty. And the cops are going to love it, and wonder how cops in the old days managed to do their jobs without a video record.
But the technology isn’t there yet. You need a camera and video storage device that light enough. And the logistical problem isn’t so much providing every cop with a camera, it’s archiving and transfering and storing all that data. And mounting the camera on the gun is a silly idea, unless the gun camera is teensy-weensy, small enough that it doesn’t interfere with the main purpose of a gun, which is putting the right holes in the right people. And even then, the gun camera is only another viewpoint, 99.9% of the video recorded is going to come from helmet/goggle/badge cameras.
Look, I can’t help but notice that you have fewer than 300 posts, and may not know how things work.
You’re supposed to drag more and more random anecdotal evidence supporting your original position, despite all evidence to the contrary. If someone ever supported anything that can be stretched to construe support of any kind of cameras under any circumstances you accuse them of being hypocrites for not supporting them in this.
When people almost uniformly disagree with you, accuse them of ganging up on you and make reference to the lockstep mentality around here. When it devolves into a six page pit thread you can claim victory.
Doing it the way you do it threatens an outbreak of civility.
What’s more important, judging on the spot or judging in hindsight?
Aren’t both of significant value? We want our officers to be able to make quick decisions, but if we have an officer that, in retrospect, tends to make quick bad decisions, we’d like him released from duty.
Ye gods that’s a big camera thingy. How the hell are you supposed to draw a pistol with that on it?
Both. Every time a cop unholsters his weapon, there should be a review of whether that was justified. Not neccesarily to punish the cop for making a bad choice, although that’s certainly a possible outcome, but to help train cops so they can make better choices in the future.
No there shouldn’t. Only if it’s fired.
I’ve unholstered my weapon many times while making a traffic stop on vehicles with illegally tinted windows at night. The weapon is held pointed down along the strong side while the officer leans forward to speak with the driver.
**
This is a trained technique.** And many officers use it.
If there had to be a review everytime this trained technique were used every department would have to have dozens of supervisors whose sole job was to review it’s use.
All right, that sounds reasonable.
Not for nothing here, but it’s no great revelation that the inventors of products like these are always FORMER LEO’s. The pistol cam is a Very Bad Idea ™. First, your muscle memory will have to relearn the weight of your weapon. Second, if something on or around the camera comes off, undone or interferes with the operation of the weapon, it presents a greater danger of mishap with the weapon. Third, and as pointed out previously, the only thing the camera will see is the ground until it’s time to actually fire, which defeats the purpose in a large way, and finally, when it’s time to get down to business, I’d be willing to bet 9 out of 10 of these overly expensive gun anchors will end up accidentially “broken” on walls, doors, sidwalks etc. Then we’re paying twice for the same piece of crap, that should have been purchased in the first place. No chief is going to eat that much in his or her budget.
Bad idea.
Of course, they are. Nobody denies that. That doesn’t invalidate the question of which is MORE important – making sound judgments on the spot or judging their actions in hindsight.
You’ve got people arguing (rightfully so) that having this camera could cause officers to point their weapons in manners other than according to safety – to make sure that something is recorded, for example. You don’t want anything unduly biasing that judgment. At the same time, others argue that having these cameras should be used because it would help the great overlords evaluate whether the unholstering of a weapon was justified. This makes it entirely appropriate to ask which is more important – the judgment itself, or the evaluation of this judgment in hindsight.
Well, I kinda agree the gun cameras are Class 5 stupid, but I can imagine the cars being equipped with more cameras, pointing in more directions so more evidence can be gathered and (eventually) some kind of wearable recording device the officer can have on his uniform.
Hey, gun cameras could be interesting option. If they had night vision capability and output feed to head-on display. “Let’s check whats around the corner”… But that’s future, although maybe not that far future, taking into account size and prices of video equipment going down.
Besides, Stranger, Rick, what do you have against tactical lights mounted on weapons? They are useful tools, but tools that need to be used skillfully. You don’t keep them on and wander around asking to be shot. You keep them off and turn them only when you need to identify target. For example, you are clearing old warehouse, see something moving, light it up, confirm whether it’s armed criminal or homeless bum and shoot or not according to situation. And then turn them off again.
I shoot a lot and have done so for nearly 40 years. I shoot a variety of weapons. I believe you all are making far too much of the “muscle memory” issue and weapons having different balance necessitating re-training. If police officers were competitive bull’s eye shooters or practiced for some other event where teeny-tiny groups were of the essence, you’d have a point. The thing is, that’s not the type of shooting in which they are trained.
Further, police departments routinely switch to whole different weapons without any great difficulty. For example, the PA State Police have_in my lifetime_switched from .357 revolvers to Beretta Model 96 (DAO) .40 autoloaders to Glock Model 37’s in .45 GAP. During my father’s tenure as a police officer, he went from being issued a S&W model 10 .38 special to a Ruger Speed Six .357 to a Colt 1911 .45 acp. These changes were all uneventful.
There may be reasons why gun cams are impractical or undesirable, but the idea that attaching one of these units to the guns will have an enormous detrimental effect on the officers’ abiltity to shoot isn’t one of them.
Right, and I don’t think anybody would object to that. In that situation, you will not have a trade-off between using the weapon judiciously and recording the manner in which it is used.
How long ago was this? I don’t know of any department in modern times that issues a colt 1911, except for special squads and tac teams.
He started as a police officer in 1961 and was issued the .38. He was issued the Colt around 1982-83 and carried it until his retirement (from being County Sheriff) in December of 2007. Now it’s mine.
Also should note that in departments where officers/deputies are required to purchase their own weapons, you’ll often see a pretty fair number of 1911’s. I carried one, for example.