Urging Local LE to Adopt Handgun RDS

[Joe _K]

*** Re-Post from P&S Discord***

What benefit, if any, would there be in me contacting my local Law Enforcement Agencies and asking them why they aren’t already issuing/authorizing Handgun RDS for their Patrol Officers?

I’m non LE, but I do have a vested interest in my local and State agencies having good equipment, and better training.

I was thinking of typing up an email and attaching Aaron Cowan’s White Paper, then pushing it out to all the local training officers and CC’ing the Sergeants, Lieutenants, Commanders, Captains, Under Sheriffs, and Sheriff.

If not to the Law Enforcement Agencies themselves then maybe the local governments that they answer to? County commissioners, Town Council, Mayor etc.


For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
‭‭1 Timothy‬ ‭2:5‬

 

[CK837]

My personal opinion is that if you go to the admin you'll just get blank stares and probably hurt egos. If you go to the city council and try to convince them to require the dept to go that route, or at least consider it, you're really going to piss off the whole agency. This is probably agency dependent, but in my area I think that's how it would go down.

My advice would be to try to build a relationship with individual officers and work into the idea. If you don't know any of the officers personally, find out if they have a Citizen's Police Academy or do ride alongs. If you can develop those relationships and convince the individual officers that RDS pistols are the way to go they can push internally which might be more successful. If nothing else they might be able to give you feed back on ways you can help them get better training or equipment.

The city council is definitely a step, but that has to be more of a proposal for funding or the similar based on an agencies desire for xyz item or training that is outside of the normal budget. This won't likely be fast, so be ready to be in it for the long haul.

That said, as a current local level LEO, I thank you for your desire to support LEO's and make them more effective at their job. Just having a citizen come forward and want to find ways to support them will mean something to the people who work there. In our current society, many people support their LE, but are fairly silent about it in general.

Hope it helps. I'm happy to answer other questions if I can.

 

[WAVandal]

That can be a big hill to climb, even from inside the agency. I suspect the main counter argument you will hear is cost, almost no agency wants to drop the money to put a RDS on a pistol.

I'd start with the Chiefs and Sheriffs. Maybe the firearms instructors if you can figure out who they are. If you can't get traction there, County Commissioners and City Council, likely looking at the Public Safety panels.

 

[Gypsy EDC]

.gov generally moves slowly

.gov generally doesn't like to pay for new equipment and training

There is absolutely a learning curve to run an rds pistol quickly, not all Leo's are "gun people" many won't put in the work to reap the benefits.

Start with uniform officers and see if they even want to run an rds

 

[ggammell]

Make it optional.

Find grants for them in advance.

Talk to the armory/instructors guys first.

 

[Fatboy]

Optional is the best route. Officers that want to put in the time to learn a red dot will do so. Officers that want to be mediocre will continue, regardless of what is foisted on them.

You can't force officers to care or excel above the minimum standard. Making it optional gives room for the high speeds to move on and the middle of the road guys to evaluate their choices after seeing them in action. The bottom 10% will stay the bottom.

 

[Joe _K]

What about an offer of a free RDS and Balor mount with compatible holster to T&E?


For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
‭‭1 Timothy‬ ‭2:5‬

 

[Fatboy]

Again, it goes back to not being able to force someone to get better.

There are still agencies out there that will not let officers use a spotlight because they don't trust the officer to not be a fucking moron and bring the gun out just to use the light. Add in the mentality that exists of "Who the hell does this non cop think he is, telling us how to do our job?" and you have a tough road ahead of you.

Your best bet is finding a switched on range cadre, or an admin LT that's a former action guy and test the waters with them. Followed by being prepared to show them how good it actually is instead of just singing its praises.

 

[ArmedNovelist]

A lot of local LEOs here don't even utilize the practice ammo that some departments offer of training. Then, they'd show up to practice the week before re-cert, shoot like shit, and then wonder why they failed their re-cert. Trying to help them with fundamentals, as a civilian, gets you the self-righteous officer mentality shown as a reward. Very rarely was there an exception to the rule when it came to parish / city officers.

I believe, actually, that you'd have better luck convincing the FBI on this topic and then just watch as everyone swarms to imitate. Same thing happened when they switched to 9mm Glocks.

The logistics will be a hassle if you were successful. There's no one-stop shop for "proper" mill-work. Case in point when people complained about how "poorly" Glock's MOS sections were done. "The channel is not deep enough" and others complained of issues with the plates and mounting. So, then you go back to post-FBI-9mm-choice when everyone dumped off their .45 and .40 S&W department guns to pay for 9mm Glocks. Then the P320 came out and several departments, who already had older 9mms, bought those as opposed to Glocks.

All of the civilians I've seen go private for milling and none of those departments, with nearly new guns, are going to buy MOS'd models. And, then you've got those questions. "Who do we go to", "How long will it take", "We don't have Glocks, and we have SIGs", etc.

I agree wholeheartedly with the concept, but like CK837 said. You're more likely to piss off the whole department.

 

[jBravo3]

Joe_K, I def appreciate where you're coming from, but unless you're bringing a really thick checkbook with you, I think you're wasting your time. You can spread the gospel and have people believe, but without funding, it doesn't matter. And remember, that's funding for the optics, plus milling or entirely new weapons altogether, new holsters, the training required to become reasonably proficient, etc. It's not exactly a turnkey proposition.

The above post (ArmedNovelist) nailed it. It boils down to logistics, but then you'd have to leapfrog the priorities of certain administrators and their individual, pre-existing agendas. I've demo'd red dot pistols to some of our agency's command staff, explaining benefits, etc. They've seemed interested, and a few have shot them. I will see it kind of starting to click, then they ask how much, and that's where the conversation ends after there's a gasp of breath, rolling eyes, and the pistol gets shoved back in my direction with a shaking head. Even if they agree it's a good thing, they may not be able to make something out of nothing.

I don't know if he was saying it kind of tongue in cheek or not, but the above post is probably spot on regarding the FBI and the subsequent swarm. You especially get that if there are as many National Academy pins floating around in your upper echelons as there are in mine.

It just takes time. Change is slow, but we are headed that direction.

 

[CK837]

@Joe _K I hope you're not feeling too beat down about this. I can't speak for everyone else, but I for one really do appreciate what you're trying to do. The issue with changing things in LE is that it's really difficult to do from the outside. LE work makes a pretty close knit group of people with shared experiences who tend to think people without those experiences don't understand them or their needs. In this case, yes RDS pistols will help some, but honestly not all. I still think your best bet is finding a way into the department through relationships with individuals and working on making them better and "seeing the light" over time. The officers MAY be able to change things over time from the inside if the admin is accepting and there is the money for it. That's where your desire to help could be useful in working on fundraising etc, but it's going to take time. As others have mentioned, or alluded to, most cops aren't shooters and wouldn't know what to do with a red dot pistol if they had it. I'd be willing to bet some would even take it off or at lest turn it off because they don't understand it and don't want to. Frankly, just getting people to understand that the mandatory qual is the MINIMUM standard and not some magical level of gunfighter awesomeness is crazy hard on its own.

Like I said, please don't let these comments get you down. We need more people like you who want LE to excel at their jobs. I think we're all just trying to help you understand the internal dynamics better.

 

[TheTick]

To me, the biggest hurdles are the lack of suitable duty holster for anything other than Glock RDS'd pistols and the idea of sending PD-owned guns out to get milled. If one gun comes back even the slightest bit incorrect, the program is a done. The only way I was able to pull this off was with the impending new pistol purchase (we get new pistols every 10 years). We're going from P229R DA/SA to G17/19 MOS and we're going to be getting Safariland 63XX-series RDS holsters. Officers must purchase their own RDS (definitely RMR, possible DPP also).

This "one-stop" purchase is the only reason that it is more than likely going to happen (it still isn't a full go yet). I was lucky to get the Chief to tentatively agree to this and it started with a pitch of buying pre-milled slides from top-tier companies, then sending slides out, then the MOS. The MOS was the one that got a nod.

 

[Joe _K]

Not feeling beat up at all. The end State remains the same, getting good gear, and better training into officers hands. I’m just trying to figure out what the best options are before wasting mine, or anyone’s time pursuing that end state.


For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
‭‭1 Timothy‬ ‭2:5‬

 

[CK837]

To me, the biggest hurdles are the lack of suitable duty holster for anything other than Glock RDS'd pistols and the idea of sending PD-owned guns out to get milled. If one gun comes back even the slightest bit incorrect, the program is a done. The only way I was able to pull this off was with the impending new pistol purchase (we get new pistols every 10 years). We're going from P229R DA/SA to G17/19 MOS and we're going to be getting Safariland 63XX-series RDS holsters. Officers must purchase their own RDS (definitely RMR, possible DPP also).

This "one-stop" purchase is the only reason that it is more than likely going to happen (it still isn't a full go yet). I was lucky to get the Chief to tentatively agree to this and it started with a pitch of buying pre-milled slides from top-tier companies, then sending slides out, then the MOS. The MOS was the one that got a nod.

I can't speak for other brands because I haven't looked, but we got Safariland 6300 series RDS holsters for Sig P320's. Safariland actually has quite a few options, but the website isn't always easy to navigate options. I personally wish ATEi would buy P320 conversion kits and then mill an RMR on it and resell them. That would be a great off-the-shelf option. Since Glock sells OEM slides they could do it for Glock too. For a department that's extra cost though. What we've done as an agency is said they're approved(not official yet, but in trial phase) but officers have to buy their own slide and optic. The cost burden falls on the officer at that point, but at least the agency isn't standing in the way.

 

[Seth Thompson]

CK837 wrote:

"Frankly, just getting people to understand that the mandatory qual. is the MINIMUM standard and not some magical level of gunfighter awesomeness is crazy hard on its own. "

This.

Seems tangental, but speaks to the root of the problem of change in police agencies. To most upper-level admins, anything involved with shooting is just another checkoff on a long list of things that have to be checked off: Defensive tactics, less-lethal devices, emergency driving, mental health, diversity, medical skills, domestic violence, etc, etc.

To them, if people are meeting the "qualification" standard, in any of these checkoffs, then everything is good. Sometimes, it takes very persuasive subject matter experts that have in-house credibility, to change their minds.

Sometimes, it takes a traumatic use-of-force incident to change their minds.

 

[PM07]

Are you friend with any officers in the local agency? If so, next time you go to the range with them, take a RDS pistol and show them the benefits. See if they have considered RDS. Just because they don't currently doesn't mean that they haven't considered them. If they have but are unsure where to start, help them with that. Get them on the forum where they can see how officers /agencies are getting approval.

To be honest, Unless the County Officials, Mayor etc are shooters, they probably aren't going to give 2 shits about spending money on stuff the department hasn't asked for. We got extremely lucky that the new City Manager that replaced the previous one is very understanding when it comes to stuff like that. He may not be knowledgeable in the specifics but he knows that we don't waste money when it comes to gear.

 

[TheTick]

Sometimes, it takes very persuasive subject matter experts that have in-house credibility, to change their minds.

Sometimes, it takes a traumatic use-of-force incident to change their minds.

Unfortunately, it's generally the latter that wakes them up.

 

[Hush]

Would be easier to push for WML's if they don't already have them...and probably more useful. It's staggering the amount of depts in MA that don't allow/authorize them.

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[ffemt11b]

Would be easier to push for WML's if they don't already have them...and probably more useful. It's staggering the amount of depts in MA that don't allow/authorize them.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

This. I view not having a WML a huge Officer Safety issue. I'm looking to find a new agency and won't consider one without WMLs.

We have a couple guys out of about 200 that carry RMRs off duty or as Secondary Duty guns. My Sheriff recognized the utility but it's about the money, all the new Glocks we order are supposed to be MOS versions and slowly we will go to RMRs. Which is a pleasant surprise considering we traditionally only follow traditions.

 

[Joe _K]

My local departments all issue WML’s on Patrol Rifles and Handguns. Patrol Rifles all have decent issues optics. Glock 19, 17, 22, or M&P 9/.40 handguns. Rifles are a mixed bag of Colts, and Daniel Defense Mk 18’s.

My friend at my towns PD has an issued Gen 4 22 that shoots 4” high and 4” left at 10 yards. Same officer with my RDS equipped Glock 19 was consistently chewing up the X Ring at that same distance.

Local PD is planning on switching to 9mm Glocks once the current Chief retires sometime in the next couple of years.


For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
‭‭1 Timothy‬ ‭2:5‬