Sacramento police officers to exchange lethal shotguns for less-lethal 'beanbag' guns

[Coyotesfan97]

We’ve gone back and forth with lethal shotguns. All our 870s in patrol were dedicated to LL when we started getting rifles. Patrol had a lethal shotgun program with Mossberg 930s. If you had a Mossberg you weren’t allowed to have a beanbag. Then the Mossberg went away.

SWAT and a couple other specialty units carried lethal shotguns. SWAT had Benellis M2s. Then the SWAT leaders gave everyone ARs and lethal shotguns weren’t allowed. Then the range took all lethal shotguns away.

I just got a brand new 870 with 14” barrel with rifle sights that I’d love to load up with 00 buck and use for yard searches. But it’s a dedicated LL shotgun.

[HCM]

We're just the opposite. Everyone is trained on the LL shotgun. Only SWAT uses any sort of lethal shotgun ammo. And we only started doing that again a few years ago when we had a warrant that potentially dealt with dealt with lions, tigers and bears, oh my!

FIFY ;-)

[jlw]

At my initial agency, we (eventually) had shotguns in the cars. The chief wouldn’t allow shotgun based LL rounds as he thought they would result in an ammo selection screw up. We did have 40mm LL options for crowd control situations.

He retired. New chief (previous #2) was eventually able to get Patrol rifles. Once the troops shot the rifles, none of them wanted anything to do with shotguns, sadly. The chief pulled all of the buckshot and only allows LL ammo for the shotguns.

Philosophically, adding a LL option is not bad so long as the training and usage is as an option and not flowers and butterflies.

[Lon]

FIFY ;-)

I was waiting to see how long that took.[emoji41]

[AMC]

We dedicated all our old 870's to LL about 15-16 years ago. Still have Beretta 1301 FP3's for patrol as well, but they've been largely eclipsed by patrol rifles (now 14 1/2" Colts with Aimpoint Micro T-2's. Thanks Darryl!). We are also now mandated to deploy LL shotguns on every armed person call by policy, including man with a gun calls and active shooters. Because safer, and reasons, or something. As for the effectiveness of Supersock rounds against a determined suspect? Meh. Don't bet your life on it. Seen people hit 5-10 times with no discernable effect. A charging suspect with a knife is getting shot with real bullets, period.

[UNM1136]

As a guy who has no LEO or MIL experience I am curious. If a guy is running at you w/ a knife or baseball bat and you nail him w/ a beanbag, how does that affect him?

Most likely, given the availability of cover and whatnot the shotgunner may be trying to put a bean bag in the face, (a lethal force decision), while the lethal cover will be engaging. This is not a situation where less lethal is necessarily appropriate.

A former co-worker at one point volunteered to take a beanbag round to his tac vest while he was wearing it. Got in trouble because it busted the zipper.

12 ga, while available in LL loads, is less than Ideal. Most of the agencies around here, including ours are moving to putting a bean bag gun in every car, followed by specially trained officers with 40mm launchers. The projectile of the 40 weighs more than the loaded round of 12 gauge. Locally, the 40mm impact/OC round has proven quite popular. The idea is that patrol officers have a less lethal option when they arrive on scene, and as they begin to set a scene (containment, negotiation, etc) the 40mm officers can arrive and be the heavy less lethal hitter in the "force array".

Was talking to a canine handler from another state after the Boyd Shooting locally. Properly used, 40mm less lethal may have made a difference in the outcome of that call.

As a side note, before Taser declared that they would not sell them any longer in the US, a local agency bought a bunch of XREPs at $100 each. I was an instructor on the platform for a while. The XREP is just like other Taser Products, or any other force option, really. When they work, they work brilliantly. When they fail you better have a plan B. Even before Taser stopped selling them, Instructors were prohibited from doing live hits with them, to the point of being removed as a Taser Instructor. So even the instructors only got to see what happened when you hit someone with them after a street deployment.

pat