RE: Long Gun Policy

I think you will find too many individual cases of officers using long guns to resolve issues. They just won't make the news because it was too quick and easy. For example, one of our officers responded to a man with a shotgun call. He grabbed his rifle as he got out of the car. The rifle was able to allow him to stay at a reasonable distance and still safely cover the officers making the close contact. No shooting, so no news.

Probably the two best news cases of rifles are the North hollywood Bank robbery and the Charles Whitman UT Tower shooting. In the bank robbery, the local officers had to borrow rifles from local sporting goods stores to be able to even begin to contain the situation. In the UT Tower case, civilians with hunting rifles showed up to help the police (who only had the standard weapons of the era - revolvers and shotguns). They were able to help keep Whitman pinned down and lessen his shooting of citizens on the street.