By Joe Nelson, The Sun Telegram

 The San Bernardino Police Department is arming a squad of officers with semi-automatic assault rifles to handle potentially volatile scenarios involving hostages or barricaded suspects.
 Six officers are being recruited round out the 15-officer rifle squad, which currently has nine members.
 The squad will use high-powered Colt AR-15 rifles to hold suspects at bay from a distance until  a SWAT team arrives, police Cat. Wes Farmer said.  The squad will then assist the SWAT team in surrounding crime scenes.
 "If you have a barracaded suspect who is threatening people, the rifles allow the officers to back away from the house and still provide cover and containment,"  Farmer said.  "They are more accurate at long ranges than a handgun."
 Each officer will undergo 40 hours of training.  The rifles will be equipped with 30-round magazines, and the team members will be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in rotating shifts.  
 The Police Department should have the last six officers selected and trained for the rifle squad in the next 60 days, Farmer said.
 Some officers have military backgrounds and honed skills in the use of such firearms, bringing that experience to the squad.
 The rifles' magazines will be filled with soft-nose .223-caliber bullets that are better than conventional ammunition because they fragment upon hitting their target; stoppign at the target as opposed to piercing it.
 The guns are accurate up to 400 yards, said police Sgt. Richard Taack,  a coordinating of the squad who oversees training.
 "In a shootout situation, we want to make sure that bullets aren't flying through the neighborhood,"  Taack said.
 The rifle squad will be evaluated after its first year to determine its need within the department adn if it should be expanded.
 Use of such squads as reinforcement is not uncommon.  Other police departments, including the Montclair force, have rifle squads, Taack said.

I don't see a problem here. I think ALL cops should have high powered automatic weapons at their disposal.

Now WTF about issuing SEMI AUTO rifles to officers for the VERY VALID reasons stated could you POSSIBLY have a problem with????!!!!

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

That's the part I have trouble with.....  I always thought that the reason for having a swat team is so that you could have one militant, well trained group of cops that could handle certain situations.  Now they're all jumping on the band wagon.  

I don't have any trouble with well trained militant cops either.  The only problem I do have is with the cops being better armed and trained than the citizens.

Wait, didn't some experts say that those Bushmaster rifles could be accurate up to a thousand yards or something?

Why did they buy Colt instead of Bushmaster, I mean, more yards = better ... right? [;D]

400 yards, 1000 yards, 1/4 mile ... who are we to believe ... sigh.

If one measly little AR gives you this much grief,  don't ever look in the back of ANY Texas LEO vehicle. It'd do really bad things to your blood pressure.  

Look in the back of a Supervisor's Expedition and you'll drop dead on the spot.

Exactly.
I recently saw an Ad in GWLE (Guns and Weapons for Law Enforcement) recently that had a M249 for LE.  I still cannot see when they would need a belt feed machine gun.  They must answer for every round fired.  This is gonna get real difficult when your firing at 750 rounds per minute!  Having one as a citizen is a right.  Needing one for LE is a little different.  What is the need?  Perhaps to kill everything in the house? MP5s, M4s, M16s I can understand but a belt feed machine gun.  That's just a little overboard IMHO.

"Guns and Weapons for Law Enforcement"  is a really bad joke of a magazine, targeted at wannabe's and mall ninjas.

Anyone who takes it seriously has MAJOR issues with reality.

You object to LEO’s having more training?  A common complaint amongst both LEO’s and their critics is that they don’t have enough.

With rare exception, almost any law abiding adult citizen can legally own a rifle of some sort.  Thus, any LEO not allowed to have a rifle is less well armed than that citizen.

It was an Ad not an article.  The 'reality' is that some company was selling such an item.  It wasn't a story on how the M249 SAW shoots or otherwise.  LE DOESN't need belt feds.  Belt fed machine guns are military weapons for fighting wars.  Fighting wars and fighting crime are two entirely different things hence the Posse Commtatus Act.  What's next SWAT Teams armed with MK19s and AT4s and calling in air strikes!

Impressive.

Militarization is having a rifle?  We have very different opinions on this subject.  Militarization is when you see regular cops, like some do around here, wearing OD fatigues, name tags, rank, and other badges with black text on OD, and wearing army boots.  That's militarization!   What good is a dark green uniform in the middle of a city?z

I thought this post was going to be about LAPD issuing M249's and M16's with attached 203's... [i]THAT[/i] would be insane.

A few AR's on each shift isn't a bad thing;  the shootout in north hollywood would've been much shorter if some of the cops had had something more powerful and accurate than pistols/shotguns.


But California is still a black hole for gun owners...

This is an OLD article. It went out several months ago.

The 12-gauge shotgun is largely obsolete for modern suburban police work, and is best suited for special-purpose roles.

.223 caliber carbines are very well suited for patrol work.

This is not about "militarization." This is about having adequate tools for the task at hand. If you want to debate "need," a patrol cop is several hundred (or thousand) times more likely to actually "need" a .223 caliber carbine than the average citizen. You can own one because it is your right. The officer needs one to do his job.

SWAT response is typically 20 minutes to an hour, maybe more. Most PDs can't afford to have 10-20 guys milling around, not taking calls, waiting for STHTF. First, someone needs to identify the need for SWAT (5-20 minutes), then they need to be called out. Add five minutes to half hour for folks o drop what they are doing, gear up and fight traffic to get to the incident. Figure another 5-10 minutes to get assembled, break out gear and come up with an emergency plan. Patrol needs to be able to handle the initial stages of many of these emergencies on their own. Heck, we have pushed the training and initiative down far enough that Patrol is handling many incidents themselves that would have generated a SWAT deployment a few years ago.

If Patrol cops having carbines really gives you heartburn, then you really don't want to know what I load up in to my work vehicle when I go to "the office" every morning. You'd probably have a stroke.

I thought the description of AR 15s & 223 soft nosed ammo was kinda interesting considering the same description of that very same AR15 & 223 ammo when the DC snipers were using it...

Yeah, one of the reporters in the DC area (I live in Northern VA) at the time was describing "its a .223 caliber, high power rifle" and then held up what looked like a .30-06 round.  

When I lived in Concord, CA I knew of two officers who carried AR15s (SP1s) in the trunks of their trunks.  This was in the mid 80s.  They also were allowed to carry 1911s.

[size=3]The arms of crooks and criminals have peaked back in the 20/30's. Truthfully, the police really don't need military units, IMO. I think it is all about pension-protection... if you can't live long enough, you will not get your pension. Besides, cops love guns except the political ones.

Finally, the 2nd amendment applies to them too as it applies to all people.[/size=3]

See these guys...

[url]http://www.armalite.com/[/url]

Please? i will be on call!

I think that the cops should be armed with Lever Action Rifles and Single Action Revolvers.

You don't understand, there's a "war on terror" going on. The cops need this kind of firepower 'cause they are looking to the day when they have to pick up all those "illegal" unregistered "assault weapons" from their terrorist owners out there....

They are just getting ready for when FienBitch declares herself El Presidente & Maximum leader for life of the PRC(She might appoint Taliban Johnny as Vice EPMLFL) . They will need all the firepower they can get when FienBitch orders them to rape & pillage (No I mean confiscate) all registered evil assault weapons in the PRC. Then finally it will be a safe place for the leftist masses to raise their children. Who Knows maybe Hillary & her Bitch Bill will move out there!

Then after they are through with gun owners they will set their sights on another noncompliant group, Like people who drink Coffee that is not brewed from Organically grown Coffee beans, Or Schools that take Christmas Vacation Instead of winter Break,They cant have people Celebrate Christmas or Chanukah! It night offend someone!

God Help Us!

[rolleyes] the nuremberg defense

I don't mind LE's having AR15s. Criminals have used full auto weapons since before the 50s. Look at Dillinger and other mobsters with the Thompson .45. Lot's of cops died at the barrel end of those. Look at the current gangs and drug runners with Mac 10's and whatever else they acquire. Why should peace officers be held to carrying only a handgun and a shotgun?

I do agree with Zoom that it's, well frankly dumb when patrol officers assigned to normal duty seek to emulate the dress of a soldier by wearing woodland camo, face paint, etc., but as far as firearms, I can own pretty much anything including full autos with the proper paperwork. Deputy John Doe should at least be allowed to carry a rifle and that's what an AR15 is, a rifle.

my .02

I don't think there should be any exemption for police officers to own weapons that aren't legal for the citizenry.  I have no problems with AR15s at all, but every law abidding citizen should be able to get one.  In fact I find that very distasteful that they ban them for private use and then issue them to "peace officers".  In the PRC you're shit outta luck on buying a nice new AR15, but not so for the cops...  That's not right.

Just because the officer is issued one of these weapons does mean he is getting "away" with anything..He still has to check out the weapon and is not allowed to take the weapon home unless he is issued a takehome vehicle. He cannot just take the weapon to the range and fire away in front of the general public and say hey look at me I can own this and you cant..He has to qualify with the weapon and take the class and tests to do so.How many of you here have bothered to take a Firearms safety class?Maybe a few of you have and good for you.The weapon is a tool that is used in a situation that calls for that type or class of weapon.The officer should have been taught that long before he hits the street anyway.What about having a vehicle that has the interceptor motors or the Police band radio..They are restricted items..How about OC spray..I am sure that is banned in a number of states as well.These are just tools that should help the matter at hand. If an officer wants to purchase a restricted weapon he has to do a fairly large amount of jumping through hoops and loops to get one and then he has to sign a letter of intended use for this weapon and that is just a semi-auto, no full-auto allowed to individual officers unless he goes through class 3 dealer.If he uses the weapon for anything other than what he stated on the letter or intent he can be charged with Federal charges by the ATF, plus if he leaves that department then the weapon must stay with the department until he retires, where the department can give him the weapon as a retirement present. So it is no walk in the park and just flash a badge and give me this weapon, it is fairly difficult.I carry a few goodies myself but I have taken the time and effort to become proficient with them so that I can use them effectively.