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I’m guessing I’ll ruffle some feathers with this post, but I couldn’t help myself after reading this article in a recent edition of American Cop. The author of the American Cop article makes some good arguments in his “Case For Shotguns”. If you’re talking about allowing a well trained Officer to carry their personal shotgun on duty. But he misses the mark when it comes to making the case for shotguns as a general issue long gun for law enforcement. There is absolutely no doubt that the shotgun can be an effective and versatile weapon in the hands of the right person. But the shotgun’s time as a long gun for widespread use in law enforcement has come and gone. As a police administrator and firearms instructor, I believe that’s true for two reasons:
- The demographics of modern police officers
- Allocation of resources
The demographics of modern police officers – Gone are the days of minimum height and weight standards to get into law enforcement. Gone are the days of law enforcement being a male only profession. And rightly so. Gone are the days when most police cadets showed up to their first day of the academy with experience shooting rifles and shotguns. Those days were long gone when I started the academy in ‘96. Maybe half of the 30 odd cadets in my class had any experience whatsoever shooting a shotgun prior to coming to the police academy. Of those that did have experience, maybe half of them were what can be called “proficient” with a shotgun when they showed up to their first day of the academy. And although we all passed the state qualification course, there still weren’t that many of us who met my definition of “proficient”.
And things have not gotten better. I’ve been teaching in the police academies for a dozen years now and I’d say that less than 25% of the cadets I’ve trained had ANY experience whatsoever shooting a shotgun prior to the academy. It’s probably closer to 10-15%. And very few of them are already “proficient” with it. We only get them for 60 hours of firearms (only 46 of which needs to be live fire). Those hours include training them on the pistol and the shotgun. How many rounds do you think they actually shoot during their academy (State of Ohio) time?
That’s right, cadets only have to shoot 95 rounds of shotgun ammo in practice. And another 8 rounds for the test if they pass on the first attempt. 103 rounds is all they are required to shoot to be what the State of Ohio considers “proficient”. Now, of course academies can have them shoot more if they have the time and ammo. How do you think that works out in real life? So in the end, I would say that maybe 10% (being very generous) of graduating cadets are proficient with a shotgun to a point where they feel confident and comfortable with their skills and would actually consider using one on a call.
Allocation of resources – There are very few non-federal agencies who have the resources necessary to justify keeping the shotgun as a general use law enforcement long gun. And very few of those agencies that do have the necessary resources actually dedicate any of those resources to ensuring that their officers are more than just barely proficient with a shotgun. Think about it. You’ve probably seen the same body camera videos I’ve seen. Chances are you get the same cringy feeling I get when watching many, if not most, of those videos. After seeing the dismal state of shooting skill those officers displayed with a handgun, do we really expect them to be proficient with a shotgun?
So exactly what “resources” am I talking about? I’ll break the resources down into three categories: equipment, ammo and training time.
Equipment – in the American Cop article, the author opines that, “Shotguns are usually cheaper than a patrol rifle.” Are they? I’m not so sure. A properly equipped shotgun isn’t cheap. But what are the absolute MINIMUM requirements for a duty shotgun? I’d say they are: 7-8 round capacity, a stock that is the proper length, a sling, a flashlight and a way to carry extra shells on the shotgun. Plain Jane, bead sighted 870s are what, $5-600 now? The last plain Jane 870s I purchased (new RemArms 870s I bought as Academy Commander) were $450ish 3 years ago. They were 7 shot, normal wood stock 870s. Then, in order to make them useable for most cadets, I purchased Magpul furniture for them. So add another $150. Now we need a flashlight. A Surefire forend will run what, $500 now? A sling and hardware? Another $75-100, minimum. Ammo carrier? $30-185, depending on which route you go. So it would cost anywhere from $1k-$1500, depending on what specific equipment you settled on. But what kind of shotguns are agencies actually issuing? Usually something like this shotgun from the CVPA active shooter incident I posted about here.
I do know that at least one 3 letter agency issues their agents well set up Beretta 1301s. Having said that, I don’t think that is standard for most federal agencies.
I can get a quality AR pattern patrol rifle (@$1000) similarly equipped with iron sights ($65-$120), sling/hardware ($100) and flashlight ($150-$200), for $1500. Easily.
There are very few agencies in my area that issue each officer a long gun. Most agencies have long guns assigned to patrol cars (and sometimes unmarked cars), not people. So let’s look at what it would cost to equip my agency of roughly 50 sworn and 11 marked patrol cars with what I consider duty ready 870s: 11x$1500 = $16,500. In just the costs of the shotguns.
And if we add the Vang Comp treatment (evident in the American Cop article) and optics to our 870s or buy Beretta semi-autos with optics (like the shotguns pictured in the article)? I’ll be generous and say add 50% to that total, so close to $25,000.
Ammo? How much ammo should someone shoot every year to stay proficient? I’d argue that you need to shoot at least the equivalent of a 1-2 day shotgun class every year to stay proficient. So let’s say roughly 250 rounds of birdshot per year to stay proficient. At a minimum. Birdshot is (at minimum in a state bid) $85 per 250. So my agency of 50 would need 50 cases. $85 x 50 = $4,250.00. That doesn’t count buckshot and slugs. And that doesn’t even get into the issues with using the right buckshot in non-Vang Comp’d shotguns. You’re limited to (if you’re doing your due diligence with regard to ammo selection) loads using Federal Flite Control or Hornady Versatite wads. Both of which can sometimes be difficult to obtain, especially the preferred 8 pellet loads.
But how much are agencies actually shooting every year? Since my agency phased out shotguns for anything other than less-lethal use more than 20 years ago, I reached out to a couple of other local agencies and asked them. Ready? One agency told me that if the Officer qualifies (8 rounds) on their first attempt, then those might be the only 8 rounds that Officer fires that year. It just depended on whether they used shotguns in their annual “top gun” event. And the other agency? Less than 20 rounds per person.
And let’s finish this up with the last, and most important, resource – training time. I don’t know a single agency that gets enough training time. We train more than many agencies, but we still only get to shoot three times a year with all the other training that we need to squeeze in. In the American Cop article, the author correctly points out that being difficult to reload and harder recoil are obvious “cons” to the shotgun. He also correctly points out that both of these can be overcome through training. But how realistic is it to expect agencies to provide the amount of training time necessary to build the kind of skill necessary to run a shotgun in what a shotgunner would consider a truly “proficient” manner? It is totally unrealistic for most agencies. This will make my friend JW cringe, but if a LE agency chooses to keep shotguns in their inventory, the shotgun that makes the most sense is an AR pattern shotgun. Think about that – the same (for the most part) manual of arms as the AR, so we’ve taken away learning a totally different manual of arms like the tube fed shotgun requires. But a quality AR pattern shotgun made by a reputable U.S. company (or Italian or German) is probably never going to happen. And if someone did make it, how much would it cost? I would hazard a guess that a properly equipped one will be in excess of $1500.
The most widely utilized law enforcement firearm is the pistol. Carried day in and day out by hundreds of thousands of cops. And yet, we cannot even keep our Officers truly proficient with them. In a study of Dallas PD officer involved shootings, DPD had about a 35% hit rate. According to this article, Las Vegas Metro and NYPD demonstrated hit rates anywhere from 23% to 52% in the studies done on those agencies. Why on earth would any rational police administrator spend more time and resources training on a tertiary (let’s be honest, the AR pattern rifle is the main secondary weapon used by American LE) weapon when pistol skill is so dismal?
No, it just isn’t rational to keep the shotgun in use as a general issue firearm agency wide. It’s time to kill off the shotgun for general law enforcement use and focus on making our cops more proficient with their pistols and rifles.