Originally Posted by MacCool

Absolutley! Agency firearms choices are generally made by bean counters, not shooting cops. They pick their issued patrol weapons based on price, not on performance and usually don't allow individually-owned rifles even though most armorers would prefer it. Here, DPMS headquarters is located about 90 miles away, so finding those rifles issued as patrol weapons is common in all the various police agencies around here. It's a nightmare for most of them because of the lack of reliability and the effort that department armorers have to expend to keep them running even for the twice-a-year qualifications they have to go through. You're right, your average cops are usually not gun guys. They often can't shoot well and usually know little about guns. The frustrations that I see, however, aren't from the street cops who are issued the weapon, it's from the department armorers. You're also correct in that SWAT (TAC Team here) uses different weapons. Lots of AR15's but they're usually higher quality SBRs, mainly Colt and BCM, with a smattering of select fire ARs as well as some subguns (mainly UMPs, but we did just get in a Kriss Vector on trial. Holy crap that's an amazing firearm!). The difference between a Colt or a BCM and the usual run of issued patrol rifles from a bean-counter purchase is readily apparent and an ongoing source of both frustration and jokes. Those agency administrators...they don't have to shoot the things and the armorer staff...they're already on the payroll. Their daily frustrations don't matter since they're not really costing the department any extra.