Police Guns

Concerning David Freed’s article, “L.A. May Arm Officers With Semi-automatics� (The Times, Dec. 17), the time is long overdue for this state’s premier law enforcement agency to equip its officers with modern weaponry. It is also time to consider a more effective bullet such as the silver-tip hollow point. For far too long, police officers have been required to carry functional but outdated weapons and ammunition while the criminal element has no such restriction.

Los Angeles police officers are among the finest-trained in the nation. Daily, some of them confront armed individuals. Shouldn’t the officer’s equipment equal the quality of his/her training? Should it not also equal or exceed that of his/her adversary?

So the price tag is an additional $88 over the revolver. So what? A few years ago the Times reported it would cost the City of Los Angeles less to equip every one of its officers with a bulletproof vest than to pay off the death benefits of a single officer killed in the line of duty. I suggest a similar comparison can be made concerning the officer’s firearm.

Critics of law enforcement such as Michael Zinzun of the “L.A. Coalition Against Police Abuses� may prefer our boys in blue to be armed with Daisy air rifles, but I prefer that they carry something a little more effective.

WILLIAM CAVENAUGH

San Juan Capistrano