Post originally by David Sinclair at 2003-08-23 13:03:08
Converted from Phorums BB System

Yeah, pistols are the wave of the future for cops. .38, .38 Special, .357 Magnum and 9mm are all on the verge of disappearing. The new police guns of choice are the increasingly rare Colt 10mm and ever more popular Smith & Wesson .40 caliber semi-auto pistols. Stopping power is significantly improved, while retaining the manageability of the lesser calibers cops are used to. The FBI, if I recall correctly, has been authorized to rearm for the second time in less than 20 years. First time was after a shootout in Florida during the late 80's that left several field agents dead due to the choice of revolvers as the issued sidearm. After that they switched to 9mm pistols. Now that the 9mm round is becoming increasingly useless, they've been authorized to rearm with a standard issue pistol in .40. I don't know if they chose a particular pistol as of yet.

The FBI is, of course, just the "biggest name" in law enforcement to make this decision so far. A lot of sheriff's departments have also made this switch too.

Still, your relatives haven't been in a shootout, have they? Revolvers and their perceived reloading time of "forever" even with speedloaders tends to result in the fact that while the cop using the revolver may survive the gunfight, the revolver usually doesn't, replaced with a pistol that reloads by magazine far faster and quite a bit less often.