Originally Posted by
AMC
This was a thoughtful post, so I will give a thoughtful reply.
First, yes, I guess I am getting old. Turned 57 a couple of months ago, and I've been retired from my department for just over 18 months. I did over 30 years.....the last 4 of which was in charge of firearms training. It is without boast or exaggeration that I say that in that 4 years we accomplished more change than in the previous 25 years. Granted, that wasn't hard because there really hadn't been any in that time. And there were several changes we attempted to make that were blocked by higher management, including on both the training and equipment fronts.
Your apprehension that I am one of those folks who is against change and new equipment is incorrect. We bought, tested and eventually approved a version of the QLS unit. While I understand the convenience of the QLS for the use you described, we also had several breakages of the units that caused us to go the way we did. As for external vests, my office was involved in both testing armor from the vendors, and testing and recommending ammo pouches and medical pouches for the vests that were vast improvements over what the vendor supplied. We also made recommendations for pouch placement and supplemental training for the new equipment.
That all said....leave it to cops to screw up a good thing. The department policy for external vests and the recommendations for equipment placing have been ignored by most officers wearing them since before I left. Not only is equipment placed in positions where it is difficult to access quickly, but it interferes with the use of other items. Also, many officers have used the external carriers as an excuse to carry ever more gear, sometimes to a preposterous extent. They have traded future lower back problems for neck and shoulder issues, unfortunately. I get it....cops like useful gear. But do you really need to be carrying traffic wands and digital evidence cameras on your vest? Anyway, not everything needs to come off of the belt.
The Instagram generation is very much influenced by cool appearances, sometimes over and above utility. Not all of them, but a lot. Can't tell you how many times the answer to "Why are you doing/carrying 'X' thing?" was "Because it looks cool AF."
In short, while we should always be striving to innovate and evaluate new gear, training, tactics, etc., sometimes the gear isn't the answer. If you can barely pass an LE handgun qualification, the drop leg Safariland on a QLS isn't gonna help.
A red dot, though? Yeah, that's just a no brainer at this point. Red dot all the way.