General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The CDC study on guns...shut down. [View all]Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)under-armed. Complaints were heard at the close of the 19th century about the weak .44 and .38; hence the .38 special and the .44 special. The .357 was developed in part to satisfy LEO's concerns that even the .38 special was too weak. Auto loading pistols only came into dominance after I had left college, to keep up with criminals who were using them. Now, LEOs feel it necessary to use auto-loading carbines (AR 15s usually) because of alleged increased fire-power from the crims. But ALL categories of rifles account for only less than 3% of ALL firearms deaths. Police do point to an increased number of officers shot with carbines, but the number is low double-digits for a year, I believe.
Perhaps the push is in connection with more and more police coming from war veteran recruits who are familiar and comfortable with this class of weaponry; perhaps it is part of a general philosophy that you hit the armed suspect hard and fast with overwhelming firepower. This latter notion seems to stem from military thinking.
Too many wars and their residuals, or as Faulkner said "The past is never dead. It's not even past."