BrokenArrow
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Typical of reporters trying to write about gun problems w/o any real gun experience, but interesting anyway?
Defects in NYPD handguns
Half subject to jamming
NY Daily News August 21, 2002
By Bob Kappstatter and Alice McQuillan
More than half of the Police Department's handguns are subject to jam without warning, a potentially dangerous flaw that can leave the weapons a "useless as paperweights," police sources said.
Although the jamming is rare, the NYPD has been concerned enough to order a recall of 24,000 semiautomatic Glock handguns so they can be refitted.
This problem affects the Glock Model 19 - the gun carried by about 60% of the department's 39,000 officers. The flaw, in which the shell casing fails to eject, has only arisen during practice and tests at the NYPD firing range, officials say.
"Our studies have shown this to be a rare occurrence," said police spokesman Chief Michael Collins. "In the worst-case scenario.we estimated that this has happened only once in 450,000 times when fired."
However, during an actual gun battle in Brooklyn, two Emergency Service Unit Officers reported that their Glocks failed. Collins said that after and investigation of the October 2000 incident, ballistics experts said whatever problem those guns had, it was not the jamming malfunction that is the subject of the current recall.
To correct the problem, the Austrian-based Glock company has sent engineers to the NYPD's firing range at Rodman's Neck in the Bronx. Since June, they have repaired 3,200 weapons in a procedure that takes about an hour. Immediately afterward, officers tested the refitted weapons at the range, where the results have been excellent, Collins said. The process will continue until all 24,000 Glocks are fixed, he said.
There is a delay in fixing all the weapons, sources said, because cutbacks and the redeployment of officers to special details have made it difficult for cops to schedule time to have their guns repaired.
Sources also said that some of the Glocks have a different problem - locking. When a gun locks, a user can get it functioning again by removing the clip and holding the ammunition and manually moving the slide to eject the stuck shell casing.
In that scenario, the source said, "You can be back in the gun battle in a matter of seconds, as opposed to the total jam where the guns become [as] useless as paperweights."
Now, now! Don't go ballistic and read too much into this, OK?
Defects in NYPD handguns
Half subject to jamming
NY Daily News August 21, 2002
By Bob Kappstatter and Alice McQuillan
More than half of the Police Department's handguns are subject to jam without warning, a potentially dangerous flaw that can leave the weapons a "useless as paperweights," police sources said.
Although the jamming is rare, the NYPD has been concerned enough to order a recall of 24,000 semiautomatic Glock handguns so they can be refitted.
This problem affects the Glock Model 19 - the gun carried by about 60% of the department's 39,000 officers. The flaw, in which the shell casing fails to eject, has only arisen during practice and tests at the NYPD firing range, officials say.
"Our studies have shown this to be a rare occurrence," said police spokesman Chief Michael Collins. "In the worst-case scenario.we estimated that this has happened only once in 450,000 times when fired."
However, during an actual gun battle in Brooklyn, two Emergency Service Unit Officers reported that their Glocks failed. Collins said that after and investigation of the October 2000 incident, ballistics experts said whatever problem those guns had, it was not the jamming malfunction that is the subject of the current recall.
To correct the problem, the Austrian-based Glock company has sent engineers to the NYPD's firing range at Rodman's Neck in the Bronx. Since June, they have repaired 3,200 weapons in a procedure that takes about an hour. Immediately afterward, officers tested the refitted weapons at the range, where the results have been excellent, Collins said. The process will continue until all 24,000 Glocks are fixed, he said.
There is a delay in fixing all the weapons, sources said, because cutbacks and the redeployment of officers to special details have made it difficult for cops to schedule time to have their guns repaired.
Sources also said that some of the Glocks have a different problem - locking. When a gun locks, a user can get it functioning again by removing the clip and holding the ammunition and manually moving the slide to eject the stuck shell casing.
In that scenario, the source said, "You can be back in the gun battle in a matter of seconds, as opposed to the total jam where the guns become [as] useless as paperweights."
Now, now! Don't go ballistic and read too much into this, OK?