The NYPD is moving toward service weapons with lighter trigger pulls for its recruits in an effort to improve accuracy.
Currently, officers use guns with 12-pound trigger pulls, which has been the standard for over a century, the New York Daily News reports. Going forward, recruits will be issued handguns with a 5-pound trigger pull.
The reason for the change comes after the department collected data involving 26 shooting incidents over the past year. In those cases, 256 bullets were fired by officers, and they missed the target in half of the incidents. And missed targets mean officers are likely to fire more shots, according to officials.
In field tests at an NYPD firing range in the Bronx, the department had 457 recruits—most having never fired a handgun—shoot with the different trigger pulls. The recruits scored an average of 93.7 with the 5-pound trigger pull compared to 88.7 with the 12-pound pull.
‘’We’re building (recruits) up from scratch, so to speak,” Insp. Marlon Larin, the head of NYPD's Firearms & Tactics Section, told 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.”
Although the firearms with the lighter trigger pull will only be issued to recruits, the testing also involved 129 current NYPD officers. They, like the recruits, were more accurate with the 5-pound pull.
The recruits graduating in October's class will be the first to receive the firearms with the lighter trigger pull, according to the Daily News.
But some civil rights activists and police critics believe the move could be harmful to the public at a time when officer-involved shootings are under more scrutiny.
“There is no protester or reform advocate in the country asking police for more efficient weaponry,” activist and writer Josmar Trujillo said.
