Albie
You're onto it there with the rail gun 8,600 km/h, about Mach 7.
This target was having discussions with police about news and current affairs for 40 minutes until his time was up and they pulled the plug or trigger. With Police radar tracking his knees and a 50,000 volt taser from a drive-by rail gun at break-neck speed he didn't have a leg to stand on.

Hi there ALBIE MANTON of DARWIN...

At the rate these US inventors of alternate methods of subduing violent individuals are going, and without resorting to deadly force, the average uniformed Coppers 'Appointments Belt' will be so damn heavy with all the 'use of force' options hanging from it. He'll probably need a larger girth in which to carry it all. Even then he'll probably be 'pensioned out' because of a ruined back occasioned by the extreme weight of his 'appointments belt' and all the stuff hanging from it !

When I was in uniform the amount of gear we'd neen to carry, would nearly break your back, by the weight of it all ? Upon making detective, all you needed was your F/A and cuffs, still these two items did add up to quite a bit of weight, necessitating the wearing of a coat, even at the height of summer, in order to properly conceal your appointments, pursuant to the Commissioner's direction back in the day. Personally I wore my mod 26 with an ankle holster which proved excellent, once one got used to it.

Modern innovations concerning concealment and unnecessary weight, have made the task somewhat easier these days. Still even with a Glock mod.17 (for uniforms) or the smaller, lighter mod 26 for (detectives), you still had to bear quite some degree of weight on a hot muggy day. Still you couldn't nor wouldn't attempt to undertake inquiries while unarmed ?

Good solid training, buckets of common sense, together with experience, there are not too many situations arising, where you'd need to draw your F/A, let alone discharge it ? Albie, in over 32 years in the job, I'd drawn my F/A probably no more than perhaps a dozen times at most, and never needed to discharge it. I guess I can count myself relatively lucky, considering the number of high risk arrest's, and task force raids, I took part in ?

Hey o sung wu, how did some of the dainty little ladies coming into the force, direct from a university criminology course get on with all that weight.

Or did they go straight to management or detective & avoid all that nasty stuff.

Hi there HASBEEN...

While the equipment belts had to be designed to accommodate the female form, the added weight though a concern in itself, was not the main issue. It was the choice of firearm that caused the most ruckus?

When we went from 'wheel guns' to semi-automatics, there were some issues that needed to be addressed. Most uniformed coppers carried the S & W Mod. 10/3, in a .38 spec. pushing out, either 115gr; 125gr or 158gr hollow points, depending on the flavour of the month.

Whereas most of our fairer sex (uniformed or detectives) carried a S & W 5 shot (round butt), Mod. 36/2, 36/3 or 36/4 loaded with the same round. As a detective I carried a Mod 36/2 5 shot, square butt, easily concealable in an ankle holster with 2 x speed loaders, a total of 15 rounds.

The S & W mod. 36 round butt, accommodated anyone with a small hand, so most of our ladies loved them. With the advent of Herr Glock's innovative little piece, uniformed police carried the Mod 17 - Male or Female. Many of our ladies found the bigger Mod 17 too hard to handle, therefore they sought an appropriate remedy ?

A 'certain' very well known and highly regarded Sergeant, was heard to loudly proclaim, '...if the #%@#%$ can't fire the damn Glock 17 they shouldn't be in the bloody job at all...'? Emmmm.

Well as you can imagine HASBEEN, Executive Command got their respective nickers in a very tight knot and all hell broke loose!
To cut the story short, it was arranged for all ladies to pick their choice of either the Mod. 17; Mod 19; or the popular Mod. 26. Most went for the 15 shot Mod 26, the same gun that I and most detectives carried because of it's ease to conceal. As you can imagine, the poor buggers still carry so much on their appointment belt, they all stagger around with permanently bent knees ! Who'd ever feed police command eh?

Nick...on the subject of "drive bys" & knee-cappings I hear the old HQ panel van is making a comeback in Auburn/Lidcombe and Bankstown...it's the only vehicle readily available to carry enough batteries to power up them rail guns you mentioned before.

Yes the Roni Levy standoff at Bondi Beach was another similar situation where the use of lethal force by officers on the scene was over the top and should have been better handled.

OSW...the use of the types of projectiles you mentioned are not strictly in accord with the Hague Convention (some people like to quote the Geneva Convention but it actually relates to "armed conflict" i.e military forces). I had cause to take up the matter with Paul Henderson who was at the time the NT Police Minister. Having obtained forensic and pathology evidence about the use of expanding projectiles, he then proceeded to deny that his officers were using them "as issued". I took him to task over the shooting of a young offender in one of the communities, where Jongmin was actually unarmed and in flight from officers at the scene.
See: justice.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/208484/20071203-robert-jongmin.pdf

and: http://netk.net.au/Aboriginal/Aboriginal59.asp

As we are seeing weekly only too graphically from the Home of the Land Free of the Brave, officers are certainly taking it upon themselves to be judge, jury and executioner. No wonder the natives are restless.

Good afternoon to you ALBIE MANTON in DARWIN...

Apparently you're correct apropos your comments concerning expanding projectiles being issued to police. It would seem however that most Police Commissioners haven't worried too much about it, other than mandating the size of the projectile whenever we're required to re-qualify and shoot off our old rounds during the various re-qualifying serials.

All training (with wheel guns) was conducted with waddies - and when it came to your qualifying shoot, as I indicated above, you used your old rounds that had been loaded into your F/A for the preceding six months. With new recruits, if my memory serves me well, they too trained with wadcutters but when they eventually qualified and were sworn-in, they were issued with whatever the rest of the troops were given.

In 1986 or 87 (sorry my memory) I attended the FBI Firearms Instructors School in the US, and during a quiet moment I asked the PFI's opinion; on what was then the raging F/A's debate in Oz; the question of .38spec Vs .357mag ? At that time, most SAPOL carried the Ruger Security Six' (Stainless) in .357mag.

He said for Australian conditions, if we still wished to persevere with carrying .38spec revolvers, the best cartridge for us was the, 125gr+P hollow point ! He went on to opine, the only variation he'd make, for a slighter hotter rd. would be a 110gr +P+ ?

Albie, I've was a copper for over 32 years. I've read the extract you kindly furnished us with, and I've noted the contents therein. I get heartily sick and tired of 'learned counsel' in an air-conditioned courtroom, loudly waxing lyrically about a fatal shooting. They were NOT there ! All police shootings are terrible, whenever a copper shoots an individual, that copper is lost to the Force for the rest of his career. Even if the Coroner has completely exonerated him/her. If they return to duty, they'll 'ALWAYS' hesitate if confronted with a similar situation, thus endangering themselves, a third person, or a colleague. Psychologically they're buggered.