I am not a gun expert, only having fired a handgun once on a range. But I know how difficult it can be to hit something with them, even as large a human. For say police, could a small laser pointer on the barrel at least show where the gun is aiming and improve accuracy at close-medium ranges? I suspect holstering could be a factor, but that could be got around.
There may be something out there already, but it is not common, at least on the cop shows I watch
They definitely already make them, usually with the trigger to the laser sight as a little button on the grip.
The gun rags are full of ads for handgun lasers.
Personally, though, I would never mount a laser to a handgun.
I would guess that getting the laser in line with the barrel would be very very hard. Both to set up and keep it in line. It could easily end up misguiding the shot rather than helping.
The main problem with shooting a handgun accurately is not getting it pointed in the right direction. The problem is keeping it pointed in exactly that direction until after the bullet has left the barrel. Beyond not flinching (jerking in anticipation of the recoil) the shooter needs to keep a consistant grip and muscle tension in the wrist for every shot. Laser sights do nothing for this.
Unless you build a range finder and accelerometer into the laser that is able to provide feedback control to a set of servos that align the laser, you won’t get that much shooting accuracy. A typical laser is fixed with respect to the bore of the gun so that means the laser is only accurate for one set of shooting conditions, such as on level ground at a distance of 20 metres. If you were to walk away to 100 metres and still used the same fixed laser to shoot, your bullet will have dropped more on the way to its target than you want.
Given the speed that bullets travel at, the inaccuracy of a fixed laser should be a minor issue at close quarters but would become a significant factor at long range shooting.
When I shoot a gun (handgun or longarm), I always focus on the front sight, not the target. So I don’t see what a laser would do for me.
Heck, one is used in the original Terminator movie in 1984. Arnie centers the little red dot on Linda Hamilton’s forehead and…
…well, I don’t want to spoil it.
Not only that but they are so frequently seen in films (Hollywood loves anything with a laser attached) that I’m almost inclined to suspect that the o.p. is a woosh.
The general idea of the laser is that it keeps the focus on the target, rather than focusing on the front sight with a fuzzy target, but in reality at handgun combat ranges it really doesn’t matter all that much, and the time you spend chasing after the red dot would be better spent forming a solid sight frame. Kevbo speaks correctly that a laser will do nothing to improve poor trigger technique, and I agree with Crafter_Man in eschewing the use of a laser for a service handgun or close support weapon like a shotgun; doubly so for gun-mounted flashlights, which are only good for violating Rules #2 and making a big fat target of yourself. They can be useful for long range shooting (i.e. as in sniping) or forward observer designation for guided munitions, but I’d leave them behind in Hollywoodland, along with rotating drum-fed shotguns and chromed Desert Eagle pistols.
Stranger
I would have thought watching the dot move might actually help for trigger technique in that you can see it happen? Lots of people dont seem to be even aware of how much they flinch or the like and seeing how much it moves during the trigger pull stage might produce useful feedback.
Otara
Either you have good trigger technique or you don’t; putting a laser on a pistol might be of some limited benefit in training (though we’ve made due in the past century without it) but it isn’t going to make someone with a jerky finger a crack shot. The best way to cure flinch or bad trigger technique is to dry-fire (with a Snap Cap to protect the firing pin) or feed a dummy round into the magazine or cylinder once in a while. Most bad trigger technique is really due to improper grip, which can be cured with correctly sized grip panels and finger placement.
Stranger
That reminds me of one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, 300 Miles to Graceland. In it, one of the characters is getting warned by the police to freeze or they’ll shoot, and he has DOZENS of laser sights on him, from handguns to sharpshooters. He ignores them and runs away, and bullets start flying, and he keeps running away, and most of the laser dots stay on him yet every bullet misses. :rolleyes:
Plus the laser sight gives your opponent a guide to where you are. I think it was Cobra (a Stallone movie) where Sly uses the laser sight on his pistol to misdirect the bad guys as to his location, after they use it as a sight guide to his position.
However, in the recent Taser trial in NZ, in a majority of cases the suspect surrendered when painted by the Taser laser sight but before the Taser was fired - but these were not suspects armed with firearms.
Si
That was a somewhat iconic image from my childhood. It was a film I’d never seen, would never see for about two decades, but someone kept leaving the poster selection at the supermarket open at the Cobra poster. I remember it still, Sly with the toothpick in his mouth and the gun, laser pointer and barrel pointed straight up.
Heh, here it is, tag line and all 
Obviously it can be done without it, but that doesnt mean it might not be of actual benefit.
Sounds to me like you’re saying it hasnt actually been tried. I was thinking of it in regards to dry firing, as an easy way to see how much variance was occurring or the like.
Otara
I have used a laser boresighter to improve my steadyness with a handgun. It easily reveals just how steady, or not, you are holding the pistol.
A laser boresighter is normally used to project a dot along the line of the bore of a rifle or handgun so the sights can be aligned without having to fire any shots. Then when you get to the range you should be fairly close. This is not the same device as a laser sight.
I have fired two different handguns with lasers attached. One was a Ruger revolver with the laser built into the grip. The other was a Glock with the laser built into the guide rod. I wasn’t impressed with either one. :dubious:
I don’t know that it hasn’t been tried, but remember most guns are heavy things, especially when held with your arms out in front of you. Handguns can get a bit “shaky” on the best of us when pointed and I don’t know that the lazer will be much help with training when you notice that even held “rock solid” it tends to dance around your target a bit.
Sure, it has been tried. It’s not really that much of a benefit. If you have poor trigger/grip technique, all you’re going to see is the dot jerking rapidly around. If you have flinch, you won’t see anything at all, because flinchers tend to close their eyes before they fire.
A competent instructor can tell what you’re doing wrong with trigger technique by standing behind and to the right of the shooter (assuming a right handed shooter) and from the bullet pattern on the target. Somewhere I have a table that lists what problems result in a specific pattern, i.e. flinching is high and to the right, trigger jerk is low and to the right, grip-milking is low and to the left, et cetera. A laser sight is about as useful for learning to shoot as a computer is for learning the basics of chess, i.e. not terribly and a distraction to the fundamentals besides.
A laser has no business on a service sidearm, especially as the majority of gunfights occur at close range. In a real fight, you raise the gun tip up, place the front sight on the bulk target (i.e. center of torso), and if you have time (i.e. they’re not closing to striking range) frame the front post in the rear sight and snap a sight picture, then put finger pad on the trigger and drop the hammer. Trying to find and place the little red dot is a waste of time in a situation where a second is the most valuable commodity you’ll ever own.
Stranger
That sounds like a subjective evaluation rather than empirical to me.
I did a bit of googling and found this ‘Beamhit’ thingie that seems to be being used by various parties, among others as a form of dryfire training.
Sounds to me like this is a ‘schools of thought’ issue rather than the outright yes/no sort of thing you’re suggesting.
Otara
I first saw and heard about laser rifle sights in the early to mid 70s! In fact, this was the first use of a laser outside a lab I can remember seeing. They were very big, bulky, power-hungry boxes nearly the size of a carton of cigs. They were phenomonoly expensive and, supposedly, highly illegal to own (like silencers).