A historical examination of police firearms
| Date | 01 June 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X20917433 |
| Published date | 01 June 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
A historical examination of
police firearms
Scott W Phillips
Department of Criminal Justice, SUNY Buffalo State College, Buffalo, NY,
USA
Abstract
This study provides a historical examination of firearms in policing to understand how
weapons have evolved within the American field. A search was conducted of historical
newspaper databases and a small number of books and journal articles for information on
the different firearms used in policing since their inception. The evidence demonstrates
that US police officers have been using revolvers since the Civil War, but there were no
agency standards until the late 19th century. The notion of ‘risk’ has been a consistent
justification for arming police officers, including their possession of semiautomatic pis-
tols, shotguns, and rifles.
Keywords
Firearms, historical analysis
Introduction
At a fundamental level, whether police officers are dealing with a noncriminal task, an
order maintenance issue, or a criminal event, the police are expected to overcome
resistance and reproduce order (Ericson, 1982). When a police officer intrudes on a
person’s freedoms, they can use force to overcome resistance. The ‘force continuum’
suggests that the level of force available to an officer will correspond with escalating
levels of resistance by an offender or suspect (Garner et al., 1995). For example, an
officer’s mere presence can resolve a problem, or verbal commands may be needed to
give direct orders to a person. At the other end of the continuum is the ability to use
different types of physical force, including deadly force. The most striking visual tool of
the power of an officer is their weapon. Although it is rare for an officer in the United
Corresponding author:
Scott W Phillips, Department of Criminal Justice, SUNY Buffalo State College, 1300 Elmwood Ave, Buffalo, NY
14222, USA.
Email: phillisw@buffalostate.edu
The Police Journal:
Theory, Practice and Principles
2021, Vol. 94(2) 122–137
ªThe Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0032258X20917433
journals.sagepub.com/home/pjx
States to use his or her weapon, its presence provides a credible threat that it might be
used (Dunham and Alpert, 2001). This is often sufficient to overcome resistance.
In the past 5 years, there has been an increased discussion of the weapons possessed
by US police officers, often because of the equipment used by officers during large-scale
public disorders. For example, the police response in Ferguson, Missouri, with the use of
patrol rifles, creates a perception that police officers are military soldiers. Even street-
level officers can possess, besides a sidearm , several extra ammunition clips, and a
shotgun or patrol rifle (Phillips, 2018). Early policing, such as the officers working in
Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, would be unrecognizable today. Contemporary
American officers appear to be warriors, which is antithetical to the notion of community
policing and threatens police legitimacy (Paoline and Gau, 2018).
It is possible that the symbol of police authority and force, the sidearm, had become
mundane as an issue in American policing because their possession of firearms was
commonplace. This ordinary tool of the street-level police officer was a social norm in
policing, taking a ‘backstage’ position in society and being overlooked by policing
scholars (Stevenson et al., 2003). As a result, modern assertions that police officers are
warriors, and a valid social problem, have ignored the natural history of firearms in
policing.
This essay provides a historical examination of firearms in American policing and
their relationship to contemporary policing. A historical examination of the role of
firearms within policing has yet to be conducted in any scholarship. Thus, a study of
police weapons can be framed as a social problem and examined via a ‘natural history’
process (Fuller and Myers, 1941). Others suggested that historical research methodolo-
gies are more than suitable ‘for explaining present-day criminal justice mechanisms and
problems’ (Lawrence, 2018: 500). An assessment of the history of police firearms might,
therefore, provide information on intervening factors for explaining how weapons have
changed over time in policing and an accurate understanding of modern American
policing. This can improve policies or regulations intended to solve this presumed social
problem.
Policing and firearms: An absence of scholarship
The empirical research examining police and firearms is surprisingly limited, consider-
ing the level of importance it carries in the eyes of police officers as well as the public. A
few early scholars mentioned the issue of firearms as part of some treatments of policing
history, but only in passing (Haller, 1975; Lane, 1980). Miller (1975) briefly mentioned
that the Metropolitan police officers in New York began carrying revolvers in 1857.
Police supervisors encouraged this behavior as a safety issue, but department leaders
never officially authorized it.
Rousey (1984) provided a thorough examination of policing sidearms in New Orleans
in the 19th century. He reported that during the 1850s, violence was common in the city
and often related to transient populations, issues of slavery, and the notion of southern
honor. Also, most citizens were armed because of the city’s militia as well as the frontier
tradition that relied on possessing a firearm for safety and survival. This prompted police
officers to arm themselves with revolvers. The officers working in New Orleans often
Phillips 123
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