While incidents like the North Hollywood shootout do occur, they are rare. The access to heavy firepower no doubt saved countless LAPD and citizen lives. They were saved by going into a gunshop and getting rifles, something that could not happen in Chicago where most “sporting goods stores” don’t even carry gun cleaning supplies– to non PC.
But these incidents are rare. There should be some type of rapid response heavy fire weapons available on the street on short response time.
As for the training costs, the article is way off the mark.
First of al the $1400/gun cost: That is BEFORE the city goes through its procurement process and awards the contract to an approved minority contractor. Looks more like $2000/gun..+?
Wages: More like $375/day when you factor in benefits. Plus officers are not available for street duty during training. And at LEAST 5 days to include basic weapon cleaning.
Ammo: Right now with the war in the Middle East, ammo for those guns is sky high. It used to be easy to have a 1000 rd case shipped to your house for about $140. Now the ammo is around $450/1000 and no major ammo house can legally ship to the City of Chicago.
Plus the CPD officers have been “negotiating” a new contract for nearly a year with at least another year or two before it will be settled and paid.
The money could be better spent on more training with current weapons and much more needed supplies.
