As a general rule, Civilians tend to practice more, and in most places where you have CCW, civilians have to demonstrate some competence. They also tend to fire at shorter ranges than police do, not least of which because the ramifications of a shoot are, in the end, different than they are for a policeman.
Also, if you’re packing, if you miss and hit the wrong guy, you go to jail. You also get sued. The department isn’t going to be there to provide you with legal or psychological support, nor will the badguy be charged with capital murder because he was the proximate cause of the shooting. When you take a CCW course, those facts are forcefully made known to you. And it effects both your decision to carry, and more often than not, the circumstances under which you’re willing to draw.
You also miss the point that civilians carrying, generally aren’t out looking for trouble. And while it’s counter intuitive, packing a pistol can actually make you even more timid about a possible confrontation than being unarmed. The ramifications of having to go through all of the legal actions that come with shooting anybody, generally are a great deterrent to those carrying. How would you like having your life taken apart and scrutinised in detail while you have to face a grand jury and even if the shooting is justified, if you don’t live in a state with a shield law that bans suing the victim of a crime in a lawful self defense situation, having to face a lawsuit from the perp or his survivors– all of that will weigh on your mind.
In the end, from observation, people licensed to carry will wait until the last possible moment to draw and pull the trigger. And we’re fortunate that the vast majority of defensive situations result in the civilian drawing his weapon and the badguy taking one look at that and bugging out. John Lott is right about that one. I’ve been in that situation.
A civilian has to be able to answer three big questions. First, did he have a clear and identifiable target. Secondly, did he shoot to stop or shoot to kill. Finally, why did he shoot.
If the answer to the first one isn’t “yes”, the second is “to stop” and the third “because I have an articulable fear of an imminent threat to my life or the life of another”, you are in deep yogurt and that’s made clear and forcefully so too. And again, it pays to remember that a cop is going to have the support of his department and a legal presumption of regularity which Joe Citizen isn’t gonna have.
So, when you’re talking about cops and citizens, it really is an apples & oranges sort of thing. Cops, whether we like it or not, have a different legal environment than we do, and we’re made to remember the fact.
As far as my worries about cops and weapons go, there are things that cause me some concern. First off, I’ve shot rifles my entire life, and my hobby is taking really old service rifles to the 1000 meter line and seeing what I can hit on iron sights. (Old rifles like my Finnish M28-30 were designed for aimed fire to 1000 meters and plunging fire to 2000, although the latter is anything but accurate.) One big result of that is that I understand the limitations of the weapons we’re talking about here. If you don’t adjust your sights and get to know the individual rifle you’re issued with, you’re gonna miss. And if you miss, that bullet is going to go somewhere and if it’s the wrong somewhere, somebody is injured or killed or property is damaged.
Secondly, I’ve personally seen the spectacle of cops who don’t practice trying to make up for that the day before qualification. They usually requalify, but right after that, their skills start to deteriorate again. And cops tend to engage at longer ranges than Joe Citizen will, mostly in low light level conditions and in a situation which is anything but the calm atmosphere at a practice range.
Third, back when the changeover from revolvers to semiautos was happening in most departments about ten years ago, NYPD pulled several service revolvers from field service and detail stripped them. What the department armorers found was that most of them had a considerable amount of rust, which is a pretty good indicator that there was a lack of maintenance by the individual police officer carrying that weapon.
The thing you have to remember is that for people like me, shooting is fun, for people who just carry for protection, shooting is a means of reducing liability, both civil and criminal, and for a cop, it’s mostly something that you have to do on your own time, usually paying for your own ammo, and generally it means that it’s more time doing something work related rather than going home and getting some downtime. And because cops aren’t subjected to the same kind of hostile scrutiny Joe Citizen is, they’re less inclined to go the extra mile.
And all of that makes issuance of a weapon that will be a part of the vehicle’s equipment rather than individually issued to the officer on the beat, rather questionable. It’s one thing to insist on practice and proper maintenance and issuing the cop with an individual weapon that he has to demonstrate competence with. It’s quite another to issue the damned things like jacks & tire irons.
