M14 and police

[Roadkingtrax]

I'm so happy to see people so willing to give accuracy advice to cops. This concerns me on too many levels...

No reason police should have M14s, among several other things.

http://m14forum.com/accuracy/143393-sub-1-moa-out-gi-m14.html

[Punch The Clown]

Living in a big city with a huge budget, the weapons used by our Emergency Services Unit are all maintained by full time department armorers. Those weapons cover the gamut from sniper rifles to machine guns. Members are not allowed to "tune" department weapons as per internet instructions.

[dpd3672]

When I came on the department, our "issued" patrol rifle was the M1 Carbine, which I still feel is an excellent choice, for the same reasons the military chose it to supplement/replace the 1911. It's considerably more accurate than a pistol, lightweight, handy, and the caliber is not excessively powerful...iirc, about the same power as a .357 Magnum.

The ARs that we use now are, in many situations, TOO powerful. The vast majority of shots a patrol officer will take are well within 100 yards, often with no solid backstop, and don't require either MOA accuracy or an overly penetrative round. The prevalence of body armor worn by perps does negate this argument somewhat, but it's really not all that common.

Ideally, in my opinion, would be a pistol caliber carbine that was fed by the same magazine that the department's issued sidearm uses, maybe with a red dot or holographic sight. Other than a small number of situations, which are generally handled by "special" units, this would fill 99% of the gap between a pistol and a true rifle.

In a rural area, possibly. For a department sniper/counter sniper, or other specialized unit, sure. But in most situations, the M14 is a completely inappropriate police weapon.

[Punch The Clown]

I'm not sure if this is urban legend or not, but I have heard that the retired ESU M24's and M40's were destroyed by bloomberg even though Remington offered to buy them back. Like I said, may just be urban legend but it does sound like something bloomturd would do.