I’ve always thought that most policeman carried a revolver. Usually a snub-nose .38. I was watching a police officer today arrest a person from my balcony. His firearm clearly seemed to be a semi-automatic pistol . Did this change? Is this because urban police officers prefer this type of weapon which might actually be used for something more than shooting wildlife?
Were you caught in an avalanche and frozen under the ice for 40 years? Do you own a TV? I kid but I think you haven’t been very observant. A snub nose 38 was probably popular with detective types into the 70s. Patrol officers mostly used .357 magnums and long barrel .38s. I don’t know of any department that uses revolvers anymore. Probably for a least the last 20-30 years. Most departments went to 9mm semi-autos first. For a time 10mm started to get popular. Then 40mm became fashionable. Now a lot of departments are going with .45s. I carry a Glock .45 cal. A lot of departments still carry 9mm. There is no one standard. It depends on how they feel about magazine capacity verses power.
It is based mainly on jurisdiction, local customs, and officer preference. My little brother is a police officer and he carries a 9 mm which is similar in ballistics to a .38 but it is semiautomatic of course. 9mm is among the most popular officer rounds. You will also see .357’s in wide use or at least they have been at times. They pack a hefty punch but typically come in a 6 shot revolver. 10 mm are also used in some departments.
I don’t know if that is a comprehensive list but it does help narrow down the range if you know anything about handguns. You won’t see many officers carrying .22’s or .44 magnums (for opposite reasons) for example.
LOL, no. Most of my experience was based on living in far off suburbs where the main security concern was a snake.
[QUOTE=Loach. …Then 40mm became fashionable…[/QUOTE]
That must have taken one helluva holster to hold that thing!!
and yes I know you probably meant .40 caliber
Brother is a cop, carries a 9mm, a Glock 19. I’d say from my personal experience that a 9mm automatic is the most popular sidearm for cops these days. More specifically almost all the cops I know who are currently in service carry a Glock 9mm, either a 17 or 19. One family friend (cop) carries a Glock 22, which is basically just a Glock 17 modified to fire a .40 round. I can only think of one cop I know who doesn’t carry a Glock, he has a Sig P226, which is also a 9mm auto that looks quite similar to a Glock. I don’t know any cops who carry a revolver as their primary weapon.
WAG, but I believe that full size and compact Sig Sauers or Glocsk in .40 S&W are probably the most widely used Police sidearms in the US. Locally the PD and Sheriff carry some sort of 1911 in .45. State Troopers, a Sig Sauer in .357 Sig. I’m in a county seat in West Texas.
I seem to recall that the Atlanta PD was still issuing .38 revolvers when I moved here in 1988, but soon thereafter switched to 9mm Smith & Wesson semi-automatics.
The movie Lethal Weapon has a scene with the hot young cop comparing his 14-shot 9 mm to the old veteran cop’s “six-shooter”.
40mm seems like a reasonable size to me.
I seem to recall a cousin who was with the Houston Police in the 1970s saying that they prohibited the use of .357 magnums because the bullets tended to go through assailants without stopping them. If I recall correctly, the allowed sidearms had lower muzzle velocities. Does this sound right?
My younger sister is police officer. She was issued a .40 S&W semi-auto.
My father was a police officer in Hot Springs Arkansas in the sixties and his standard issue was a Colt 38 with a four inch barrel.
New South Wales police carry a Glock .22 semi-automatic pistol as a standard sidearm. I think this has been for ten or so years, and before that, stretching back to the time of Noah, it was some sort of revolver, the name of which I forget.
Only if they were using roundnose bullets. The .357 Magnum with a 125 grain semi-jacketed hollowpoint (SJHP) is the undisputed master of the one-shot stopping percentage (based upon statistical analysis of shooting incidents by Marshall & Sanow). Many police departments, especially state police and the FBI were switching from .38 S&W Special revolvers (almost universally Colt Lawman/Trooper and Smith & Wesson ‘K-Frame’ M&P-type) to .357 Magnum (typically the Colt Python and S&W 586/686, though Ruger had some inroads as well) for duty sidearms, while “snub-nose” .38 Spl firearms like the Colt Detective Special and S&W J-frame were carried by detectives and undercover officers. (A “snub-nose” with a 2" barrel is really good only at a few feet of distance; between the shorter barrel, the higher felt recoil and muzzle blast, and very short sight radius they’re not really practical as a duty arm.)
Since the mid-Eighties, law enforcement agencies have been moving to semi-automatic handguns. These provide more firepower, faster reloading, greater robustness, and less felt recoil in a more compact package. Initially the 9mm Parabellum round was popular until an infamous 1986 shootout in Miami in which two FBI agents were killed by a suspect who sustained several wounds which should have been immediately fatal but for the alleged lack of penetration of the 115 grain 9mm. (The mortal shots were actually from a .38 Spl fired by a wounded agent at the fleeing subjects.) This prompted the FBI to move first to the 10mm Auto (chambered in the S&W 1076 automatic pistol), which was supposed to duplicate .357 Magnum ballistics, and then to the .40 S&W in the Sig P229 when the S&W 1076 proved to be too large and powerful for many agents to handle comfortably.
Most major law enforcement agencies have subsequently moved to automatics, first in 9mmP and then increasingly in .40 S&W. The most typical sidearms have been the Beretta Model 92 and Model 96, and the Glock 17 and 22 (both 9mmP and .40 S&W, respectively), which credible showings by Sig-Sauer, Smith & Wesson, and Heckler & Koch. Officers that are permitted or required to purchase personal sidearms are often found with offerings from Springfield Armory, Ruger, Walther, CZ, and Steyr as well as those previously mentioned. (Colt is pretty much out of the business as far as duty sidearms are concerned.) Occasionally you’ll see some officer carrying a 1911-pattern .45 ACP (though it’s usually a high quality clone from Springfield Armory, Para-Ordinance, Kimber, et cetera rather than a Colt) or Browning Hi-Power, but the officer in question is typically a firearms enthusiast.
Many attempts have been made to duplicate .357 Magnum ballistics in an automatic cartridge; aside from the 10mm Auto and its diminutive sibling, the .40 S&W, there is the .41 Action Express, the .357 Sig, the .400 Cor-Bon (a necked down .45 ACP case) , and a wide variety of plus-rated 9mm cartridges. It’s not clear that any of these are significantly superior to a warm 124 grain or heavier 9mmP round, and according to Martin Fackler’s theories of terminal ballistics, aside from achiving the requisite 12"+ of penetration there isn’t a lot that distinguishes one round from another other than the advertising hype.
I think you’d be hard pressed to find any modern police department issuing, or even permitting, revolvers to be carried as duty sidearms, though they may still find a place as backup or concealed weapons. The Charter Arms Bulldog .44 Spl was in high demand as an effective backup piece in the late Eighties and early Nineties before Charter went belly up.
Totally pendantic nitpick: the Beretta 92 (the firearm in question) carried by the Mel Gison character is “15 in the mag, one up the pipe” (which I believe is the way Danny Glover refers to it.) In subsequent films, Glover carries a S&W auto (5906, I think) in addition to his “wheel gun”. I’ll also note that Gibson’s gun handling technique in that film was atrocious; one does not run with one’s finger massaging the trigger, unless one wishes to unintentionally discharge a weapon, most likely into one’s soft and tender bits. If you want to see a film with good firearm handling technique, see Heat, in which the principle actors were well drilled in gun handling by professionals.
Stranger
I just want to add if I ever meet an officer carrying one those, I will not give him any shit whatsoever.
But what if he says, “Let me see that shit you’re carrying.”? What are you going to do then?
I think National Park rangers went to the .357 as their standard side arm a few years ago.
Lions and Tigers and Bears! Not sure!
Drunken campers more likely. I suspect that a revolver may stand up to the elements a little better than an automatic.
I see you have been to Detroit… 
Most likely the Smith & Wesson Military & Police (Model 10) (which the Victorian Police are still carrying!), although prior to that most Australian Police Forces used the various Webley revolvers (both the .455 and .38 S&W versions)
The Queensland Police are currently issued with the Glock 22 (which is .40 calibre, not .22!) semi-automatic, but up until around 5 or 6 years ago you’d occasionally see police officers here with Ruger GP-100 .357 Magnum revolvers.
The New Zealand Police do not routinely carry firearms, but the “Issue” handgun is the 9mm calibre Glock 17, should they need a pistol (most of the police officers I knew in NZ preferred the Remington M870 shotgun that was kept in the boot of the patrol car, FWIW).