Free M-16s from the military for your police officers to use? No thanks, says Boston Mayor Tom Menino.

Boston Mayor Tom Menino said Friday he will not approve a police department plan to put semiautomatic M-16 rifles in the hands of regular patrol officers. But Menino says he's open to giving them to "specialized units."

The police recently obtained 200 M-16s free of charge from the U.S. military and had planned to give them to dozens of officers for their patrols after training them to use the rifles.

However, some community leaders criticized the lack of public notice and questioned the reasoning behind arming district officers with M-16s when the city's SWAT team already has such weapons.

Seriously, why not let more police officers have more weapons than just a service pistol? Especially since the rifles were free of charge.

[doubleplusundead]  I saw this story too, I'm guessing they have more than service pistols, most police departments have 12 gauge shotguns issued to officers, too.   Obviously the Boston PD is hosed because Massachusetts is anti-gun and the community activists have spoken.   There's definitely a case to be made for a patrol rifle, and it would have been nice if the Boston PD would have gotten freebies to use, but failing that, what about alternatives? 

I was thinking about it last night and thought something like a Marlin 336 could be a good choice for a police patrol rifle.  It'd be enough punch for almost anything a police officer would need.  Lever rifles are fairly friendly to left handers, and it definitely would take up less room.  Given the political atmosphere in Massachusetts, the fact that they don't have the scaaawy look of an AR pattern rifle is a plus.  They would probably be a bit easier to maintain, and probably has about the same rate of fire as a standard police issue shotgun.  Admittedly, a Marlin lever rifle isn't as tacticool as an AR, but if the Boston PD really wants and needs a patrol rifle, I don't think that'd be a bad alternative choice.

Posted by: eddiebear at 08:21 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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