By Suzie Ziegler
NEW YORK — The NYPD will be issuing new recruits a pistol with a lighter trigger pull to improve accuracy, according to the New York Daily News.
According to the report, the NYPD has used 12-pound trigger pulls for more than 100 years but will now be issuing guns with five-pound trigger pulls. The NYPD says the data speaks for itself.
In a test of 457 recruits, the average score was 93.7 with the five-pound pull and 88.7 with the 12-pound pull, according to the Daily News. Sworn officers who were tested also scored better with the lighter pull. However, only new recruits will be getting the five-pound pull guns.
“We’re building (recruits) up from scratch, so to speak,” said Insp. Marlon Larin, who runs the department’s Firearms & Tactics section, to the Daily News. “As we’re training them we’re assessing them and we can also follow them throughout their careers. We didn’t want to go so large. We know this is a very sensitive topic and we wanted to phase it in slowly.”
Activists have voiced concern, saying it doesn’t make sense to give new officers a weapon that is easier to fire.
“It’s making the weapon more deadly for more people,” said Randolph McLaughlin, a lawyer who represented the family of a Harlem man killed by police in 2012. “I think at a time when we’re questioning the discharging of weapons by police, when we’re providing officers non-lethal force devices, such as TASERs, why would you want to make it easier for cops to shoot people?”
But Larin says greater accuracy means fewer shots fired and therefore a lower chance the wrong person is hit.
Other police agencies have introduced a lighter pull in recent years to reported success. The Suffolk County Police commissioner says the department has seen improved accuracy with no increase in accidental discharges, according to the report.