NYPD recruits will soon receive duty pistols with lighter trigger pull than those in the holsters of veteran officers.
The new pistols are part of an initiative to improve accuracy, according to the Daily News.
Last year, officers shot 256 rounds in 26 incidents with suspects. But they missed their targets in half of those incidents, according to NYPD data.
After field tests at the NYPD firing range at Rodman’s Neck in the Bronx, police believe that officers fire more accurately with a 9mm handgun that has a trigger pull of five pounds.
For more than 100 years, the NYPD has used firearms with 12-pound trigger pulls.
The department used revolvers with 12-pound pulls until the 1990s, when then-Commissioner Raymond Kelly began issuing 9mm handguns. The manufacturer-recommended setting for the new pistols was a five-pound pull, but the NYPD kept the trigger pull at 12 pounds.
Anti-police activists interviewed by the Daily News opposed issuing the new weapons.
