Battleangel

It seems that the change in police ammunition, augmented in part by a new tougher stance on crime (you know what they say, attitudes are contagious) has claimed yet another victim. A 22 year old man was shot dead in a lame intervention by the police. But since social structures are so intangible, I will focus on the ammunition and the tactics used here.

First of all, as I have pointed out before, the Swedish law enforcement agencies moved from a typical Full Metal Jacket (FMJ) bullet to a Jacketed Hollow Point (JHP) in late 2003. Incidentally it is the SPEER Gold Dot.

Now what I don’t understand is why. Why get a JHP bullet for law enforcement. Sure, Speer and companies like them as well as certain gun circles keep claiming that it is what law enforcement people use. Period. Did the hype finally get to them? Was it in fact so that someone questioned the competence based on hearsay and bullet “fashion”. The central problem however is that JHPs are better for killing people. Even though the mission of law enforcement is not to kill but to incapacitate. And obviously, since law enforcement is only permitted to use their sidearms as a last resort, and to incapacitate, this becomes a little absurd.
Another absurdity is also the alternative types of weapons that the police are (not) allowed to carry. The gun goes without saying, it is obviously part of their basic training, BUT tasers, telescopic truncheons and various types of mace and other less lethal ways to take someone down from outside of arm’s length, are not so common. But one has to question if they perhaps should be given that they now have started a trend to draw their sidearm so casually. Then again, if this were a more attitudinal problem as indicated, giving out more weapons, even nonlethal would be a mistake as they could be used and abused even more frivolously (just because they aren’t deadly, but one also has to consider the quality of life). It’s quite the dilemma.

And for that matter I don’t see why the police couldn’t be trusted to carry two types of ammunition on the field. Or be able to refit according to the mission parameters. There are obvious situations where this JHP bullet is not so preferable, except for its lethality, for example when penetrating lightly armoured targets and / or vehicles.