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(courtesy nydailynews,.com)

“The NYPD is spending more than $700,000 to buy automatic rifles for cops assigned to the Emergency Services Unit, the Daily News has learned. The purchase means every cop assigned to the elite unit will have their own rifle and will not have to share weapons, as has been the case, said Deputy Chief Edward Mullen, an NYPD spokesman.” The ESU will replace all its current guns, and use the “old” guns for practice. So, how much is that per gun? Glad I asked . . .

The 450 guns, Colt M4 Commandos, cost $729,000 and are being bought from Phoenix Distributors, based in Feasterville, Pa.

Mullen said the purchase is a reflection of the NYPD’s increased focus on terrorism in the wake of the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif.

“This goes hand in hand with our active shooter concerns,” he said. “It also makes sense because of what is going on around the world.”

I make that $1620 per gun. Depending on what the ESU gets with their gun – no mention of mags, furniture, suppressor or whatnot in the News piece and I don’t think we can trust their Getty image [above] as representational of the ESU’s set-up – that’s seems a bit steep. avguns.com is offering a sweet little Colt Commando package for $1245. Not that we begrudge the cops their full-auto SBRs. We just begrudge them begrudging us our full-auto SBRs.

[h/t DrVino]

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135 COMMENTS

    • What tactical use is there of full-auto? Suppressing fire in a free-fire zone? How would that ever be needed in a domestic LE application, let alone in an urban environment? Even the military uses burst-fire. These carve-outs allowing LEOs to have full-auto weapons are bulls hit.

      • Oh wait …

        Just because TFA say “automatic” doesn’t mean they are. It’s the NY Daily News. The Colt spec at the link above to the Commando says “SEMI”.

        Never mind.

      • NYC has perhaps 10,000 cops and some 8,000,000 residents. Since lately the American government has been looking at its citizens as the enemy, I am surprised that the NYPD hasn’t been acquiring canon and armored vehicles…. Oh, wait, they have been…

        • In defense of the NYPD, Hunts Point is absolutely lousy with privately owned, recomissioned T-55s. You never know whether you’re worried about the guy with the stolen .32, or the guy with the D-10t.

          /sarcasm

        • NYPD has a current authorized fill level around 34,000 officers, and a budget around $4.9 BILLION….that makes them the largest police force in the US, and (according to then-mayor Bloomberg) the 7th largest armed force in the world (including comparisons with standing armies). They even have their own “naval force” complete with 6 submarine drones; and a worldwide intelligence-gathering operation that rivals most other countries’. When combined with the civilian ranks, their numbers swell to 51,000…that’s larger than the FBI.

      • Somebody on my department used a full auto MP5/10 on a fella who was shooting at them at relatively close range.

        I agree with the post, non LEO should be able to own them as well. Besides, a “mass shooter” with a full auto AR that used it on that setting would most likely kill fewer people due to wildly spraying rounds than a semi rifle. Just sayin’.

        • “We just begrudge them begrudging us our full-auto SBRs.”

          Exactly, what is good for them is good for us non LEOs. Most often we are actually the first responders.

        • Well, Ben, if I were “first responding”, my selector would be set on “semi”. I would be using the sights! Ad I would be paying attention to what was behind the bad guy even then. Why cops need guns whose only use is to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible, is beyond my comprehension. Full-auto is for very controlled situations, just for the hell of it! Or actual combat, where there are no innocent bystanders within range. I have sympathy for cops and SBRs and suppressors, but definitely not select-fire. When common sense returns to the country and the NFA is repealed, I will still lobby for my city’s cops to be denied select-fire, it is absolutely wrong.

      • My understanding is they did B&C with full powered rifle rounds. Not tommy guns. The posse after them had experienced men and they knew .45acp wasn’t very effective against the steel bodied cars of the time.

    • Yes. In my neighborhood in a small town in Northern California. At 5:30 in the morning. A young man (and a meth addict) from the next town up the road stole his mother’s car. She reported him, and the Sheriff’s Office quickly caught up with him. A high speed chase ensued, punctuated by the thief firing a 9 mm pistol through the back window at the pursuing units. The chase ended when he pulled into my neighborhood, dousing his lights in an attempt to elude police. He ultimately ditched the car and hid in bushes next to a home across the ravine from mine. The deputies found him and ordered him to surrender. Instead, he shot at them, and one officer responded with a fully automatic rifle, probably an M-16, killing the offender. I will never forget the sound, since I was fully awake after another officer fired two rounds striking another (occupied) vehicle a hundred feet from my front door that they suspected was the stolen car, but was just a local resident off to her job as a nurse (Oops.) [Fortunately the nurse was not shot, and yes, that cost them.]

    • I spent 7 years as an USAF SP — military cop — we determines that there was not a single scenario where a fully automatic rifle would be necessary, especially in a law enforcement scenario. Sure, during war, a belt fed machine gun is useful, but never in an LE scenario. In my opinion, if a government employee fields a firearm that is illegal for a citizen to carry, they represent a military force that should be subject to the Posse Comitatus Act.

      • Interesting. I had a friend in the Air Force who guarded the nukies. They actually were closer to combat infantry than police. They actually did some combat exercises and drills with the SEALs.

        • I am not sure those guys are the same as Bob was talking about, IMHO those guarding nuclear weapons in whatever capacity should be the only LEOs in CONUS with full-auto weapons. There are potential threats from more lethal attackers, and possible situations in which innocent bystander casualties are quite literally unimportant, even if they run into the hundreds. And yes, grew served weapons included, and APCs.

        • Full auto from a rifle is not useful. Accuracy on full auto (M-16A1) is atrocious, and as you can imagine, in our job, we needed to hit the target. In combat or while protecting a priority resource, if we needed grazing fire or rapid fire for whatever reason, M-60 or bigger was more appropriate. Again, if we were doing LE work, using full auto would have likely been declared an excessive use of force and led to a Courts Martial. No, there is no reason for civilian law enforcement to use full auto, and if they did, I suspect they could easily lose a civil case for an excessive use of force. They may even face criminal charges as well. Even if a civilian LEO does not flip the giggle switch to full auto, a good attorney will probably argue to the jury that the LEO was predisposed to use excessive force, that the LEO was playing Rambo that day because he chose to field a capability that the military does not typically use.

          Civilian police are not military, pure and simple. The mere appearance that a civilian LEO is military, by-the-way, has some pretty interesting international legal issues. Since we had both a combat and law enforcement mission, we thought about that from time to time. For example, a captured combatant is treated differently than a captured criminal. Treating a captured combatant like a criminal can be a violation of the Geneva Convention and International Law. A civilian police officer outfitted like he is a combatant could be declared an unlawful combatant and prosecuted for the way he treated a prisoner. ISIS, are they criminals or unlawful combatants? How should you treat them – criminal or POW? Pick wrong, and it could cost you your freedom or life. I know, this sounds like some sort of debate from academia….but frankly, this is the kind of conversation I would expect from a world filled with lawyers with political agendas.

      • Story is those guys going after the religious cult used full-auto on each other, all killed by their own crew’s weapons. The guys and girls depending on god to save them died by sniper fire, or actual fire. Tanks had no bullets.

    • funny thing is in almost every situation single shot semi-auto is better then full auto some times 3 round burst is real helpful. but full auto is almost always just an ammo wasting way to get some kicks on the range.

  1. Seeing how previous reports of NYPD accuracy with semi auto pistols pans out, this just seems an adequate response. Ya know spray and pray work better in heavily populated urban environments.
    Jus’ Sayin.
    Geez.?

      • Ah yes… The Doughnut Commandos… How could I forget. I bet none of those scumbags could run a first class PFT if I was behind them with loaded gun for motivation.

        • I’ve heard from someone in the know, an expert on the NYC firearms scene, that the ESU (or perhaps I should say certain divisions of the the EUS) are the exception to the general rule of NYPD firearm incompetence. I believe they are the only unit that trains to a professional standard. The entire NYC ESU comprise literally about 1% of the NYPD (500 out of 50,000). It may be a gun-hating city that tolerates police incompetence in arms, but it is a city of 8.5 million. Of course they have at least a few hundred “elite” cops proficient in the use of arms for when things get really serious.

        • These guys must be good, if they need mechanical assistance to waste ammo up to the standards of the rank-and-file NYPD.

    • You’re right, they might actually become better shots with full auto than semi auto.
      When it takes 84 bullets, fired from 6 different officers, to hit 1 lone criminal ONCE, you know something is wrong.

  2. So long as they are demanding that the citizens (non-LEOs) of New York City shall not, may not, and CANNOT defend themselves then their ESU should have the very best equipment to clean out the Tangos after the carnage. After all the most important thing is that the police go home safe every night.

    Have they taken into consideration non-skid soles for their footwear so they do not slip in the pools of blood and sprain something?

  3. I own a full-auto M16 and say from experience that given the difficulty to control full-auto fire and NY’s horrible training record, this will be a disaster.

    • In all fairness, if it has some sort of muzzle device to mitigate the barrel rise, it wouldn’t *completely* suck…

        • That’ll do. Or maybe a very long sling that they can step on to hold the nose down, such as I read (as a child) Thompson carrying USGIs were equipped with (so, the story went, the recoil wold not knock them on their asses).

      • I’ve shot select-fire M16s before in both a static range (local joint has full-auto for rent) and also a dynamic situation (friend of mine is an NFA fanatic and has an RR) and having something to mitigate muzzle rise is of a big help in that sort of situation. In the case of my friend, there was a can on the end of the firearm and it helped with the control.

        Also, even though the rifle was capable of full-auto (and not just burst) it was recommended I treat it as if it were burst-only.

        Can you control an M16/M4 on full-auto? Sure, but you gotta know how to do it. I got the idea down but I would need to do it, a lot, to claim competence.

  4. I don’t know about the full auto part of the equation, but I know I would hate sharing my rifle with all the other tards.
    Unlike some people, I keep my firearms absolutely 100% clean and perfect and I would hate having people fingering my weapons. You don’t know what they did with it last shift.

  5. NY is one the most anti gun states there is. Why do they need fully autos? Its hard to use full auto I think ( Correct me guys I am just a Firefighter ) the Military only uses 3 round burst for awhile now? But anyway this is bad it starts with just 450 members some years and the PD up there will all have fully auto.

      • New York City is a major target for major attacks, like WTC ’93 and 9-11, but for the one or two person terrorist teams of late? That can happen anywhere. Just look at some of the places where they have happened in recent years:

        Kileen, TX, population 137,147
        San Bernardino, CA, population 213,708
        Boston, MA, population 645,966

        Each is tiny relative to NY’s 8.4 million residents, of course, and that makes a strong point; but each is tinier still when compared to what demographers call a city’s “commuter adjusted population.” That takes into account the daytime swelling of the population. It goes beyond just residents who are non-workers and workers who work within the city, but also the netting of residents who commute out to work and nonresidents who commute in to work.

        In NYC’s case, that netting adds another million or so people daily. In the other cities’ cases, far less, so the contrast is even more stark. Heck, Boston only barely rates measurement, as the Census Bureau only calculates this for cities with 500K+ residents. The other two are negligible.

        The take-away here is that terrorism really can happen anywhere. Though certain methods tend to work better in certain locales, ultimately the goal of terrorism is, well, terror. Toward that end, it’s the splashiness, the boldness, the senselessness, of the attack that matters more than body counts or locations.

        This purchase sounds like NYC’s just using the latest attacks as an excuse to buy the toys they’ve always wanted, as opposed to a serious and well-conceived counterterrorism initiative.

        • “Lone wolf” terrorism can happen everywhere, but a well-organized attempt of something like the Kenya mall attack is likely to happen in a dense urban area simply to maximize casualties.

          On the other hand, there’s also the theory that such an attack might in fact intentionally target specific places that are full of people (like, say, schools) in otherwise remote areas to maximize response time from SWAT and other units that have proper gear and equipment to respond. Especially when the standard procedure in response to a shooting is a lockdown…

        • NY doesn’t make the top half in area of all US states, and if they crammed another Trillion illegal aliens within its border it still wouldn’t represent another square inch of America or its values.
          NY’rs like to live on top of each other ‘ball of snakes’ style. Since their people are F’d up and they can’t trust each other they try to regulate the rest of us and take away our guns. When that doesn’t work they go full on retard ghestapo on us.
          FUNY, you don’t deserve the right to protect yourselves, and the rest of us need to work harder at preventing you.

    • Story I heard years ago (may have changed) was that the burst mechanism screwed up the trigger mechanism when in semi, as in one shot is correct, next 2 are really fuked, until the mechanism comes around again. Most anybody who was aware of the situation would prefer EITHER semi only or full auto to having the gun completely destroyed by burst fire.

      • A marine friend of mine had a similar story. They shot their qualification or matches, I forget which, on burst because one of the notches on the burst cam had the best trigger. Fire one shot then manually cycle the action around to that notch, rinse repeat…

  6. So, any of these NYPD pigsters quitting because they believe so fervently in gun rights for all people, not just government-anointed thugs? No?

    But… but.. that policeone.com poll said all cops support 2A rights for civilians…

    • But… but.. that policeone.com poll said all cops support 2A rights for civilians…but with reasonable and sensible gun controls in place to ensure the safety of the officers.

      • Hahahahahaha good one.

        LEO carve-outs, LEO bill of rights, LEO use-of-force exceptions, oh my. Some civilians are more equal than others.

    • Most cops support increasing 2A freedom for all, not restricting cops so everyone wears equally heavy chains. Same attitude as the last two lines of the article.

      • So why don’t they stick to their guns and refuse to accept firearms which are either illegal or prohibitively expensive for civilians to obtain?

        • Because that would be restricting cops so everyone wears equally heavy chains. The exact thing I said most cops don’t want. I want to be able to go and buy a full auto M249 at the local gun store, standing in line with everyone else. That takes elections, not police purchasing changes.

        • You know politicians’ lives would be a lot more difficult if there weren’t any police around to enforce their diktats, right?

  7. Sickening… Guns for me and not for thee.

    As mentioned above, that money is better spent on ammo and training, something most of their officers apparently lack.

    ETA: better used for anti terrorism… If they need full auto fire, why are they turning to the ar family? Suppressive fire is better with light machine guns… But then again who uses suppressive fire in the middle of something like a city? Something makes me think that the NY cops just want to flick the giggle switch at the range.

  8. What’s the NYPD’s justification for 750 battlefield weapons designed solely to kill as many people as quickly as possible?

  9. Thoughts:

    1. As others have expressed, what possible use could these civilians have for these “weapons of war” in a domestic setting? Will they be limited to 7 rounds per mag? And, perhaps most importantly, where in the hell is Diane Feinstein when we actually need her? Inquiring minds want to know.

    2. Memes aside, it is disgraceful that any company enables this police state by selling arms to the police that are not available to the rest of the citizenry. Looking for some education from the AI: does Colt have any say in this transaction, or is it strictly a deal between the distributor and the NYPD? Also, what info is out there on Phoenix Distributors, and how can we make them understand our opinions on this matter?

    • Phoenix Distributors sells exclusively to law enforcement, both to departments and individual officers. According them, they’re Colt’s largest LEO-exclusive distributor in the nation. Colt’s in serious financial trouble themselves, so I’d bet they’re fine with the sale.

      One thing interesting I found on Phoenix’s website, is that for individual officer sales, Phoenix won’t sell if the officer has ANY arrests or convictions of any domestic violence crimes. That’s a standard that not even officers’ OWN departments hold them to, as there are numerous state carve-outs for spouse-beating officers. So that’s something.

      Now, for sales to the departments themselves, it’s up to the department how to deal with their domestic abusers, which I suppose is to look the other way.

    • If colt didn’t want this to happen, they would simply discontinue relations with any distributor who sold civilian-illegal weapons in carve-out states.

      Colt isn’t in the greatest financial position right now though so they probably can’t afford to take the high ground.

      • Colt sold its soul to the gun grabbers in the government back in the 1960s, which is why they had the M-16 contract for so long.

  10. So didn’t the dems tell me that these guns are only meant to kill and to kill as many people as possible?

    So what do the cops need them for? I thought the mantra on the side of the cars was, “To serve and protect”, not “To kill everyone”.

    It’s almost like the dems are lying to me.

  11. My old man just had to sell* some .22 target rifles he’s owned since the 1950s because the NYPD rifle license folks think that a 5 round capacity magazine is one round above NYC’s 5 round capacity magazine regulations (they count the round in the pipe as part of the capacity): Yet these fucking cops can stroll around with full autos.

    *He could have also modified the magazine to only hold four rounds, but he would have to prove to the folks in the license office that it was done. Given his age and how little he target shoots these days, he decided it was best to sell them.

  12. NYPD has full auto M-4’s, just keeping up with the Joneses at all the Federal agencies like the Dept of Education, the EPA, the Post Office, the Social Security Administration, The NOAA, and probably a few more.
    Somehow, it’s much more important for gubmint goobers to have these spiffy weapons then the people who actually pay for them, the rest of us. I hope they secure them better than the fellow from the BATF here in Milwaukee who had his M-4 stolen out of his Govt. SUV. As far as I know, it’s never been recovered. The agent wasn’t even disciplined, because, well, these things just happen. I’m really tired of the lies, and the deception from the ruling class. We are supposed to protect ourselves by shitting our pants, and hiding, and they arm up to the hilt?

  13. take the 700k and buy hi-points and hand them out to the population. I still like the “escape from NY” idea….. 🙂

  14. If terrorism is such a problem, maybe NYC shouldn’t be harboring so many Muslims.

    In the alternative, the NYPD could issue those boys in blue some real hand grenades instead of those dopey flash-bangs that can’t even knock off a baby in its crib. And maybe some MANPADs in case ISIS has its own air force. And buy the popo a couple of tactical nukes too while you’re at it.

    Whoopie! We’re all saved!

  15. The yahoos in blue can’t fit the ground with their hats the last thing these jokers is full auto fire. Full auto doesn’t make you a better rifleman, it makes you a danger to public safety.

  16. So with ~9% hit rate and a 30 round mag on FA that’s about 2-3 hits per mag dump, and modified by the already poor training that might equal 1 hit per magazine. SOLID PURCHASE!!!

    They should spend the money on range time…

  17. “The purchase means every cop assigned to the elite unit will have their own rifle and will not have to share weapons, . . . ”

    “This is my rifle,
    This is my gun,
    You know the rest,
    Now go and have fun.”

  18. I had plans this year. Big plans. This was the year I was no longer to be the most cynical member. This was the year I would change my name to Johnny Sunshine and then I read that NYC will be issuing full auto’s.

    Full auto’s are an imprecise weapon employed to saturate an area with bullets to eliminate the enemy in that area.

    In Paris 7 terrorists killed/wounded 498 people.

    In San Bernadino 2 terrorists killed/wounded 36.

    Unless the autos are going to be used to control a rare NYC cattle stampede it sounds like some good guys will get hurt. Based on the ratios I would feel better with qualified marksmen armed with precision weapons cowitnessed with a heavily armed population.

  19. If the NYPD can’t find time to practice with their handguns, how well trained will they be with these rifles? Unless they had prior military experience, they’ll probably put it on full auto and do spray and pray.

  20. Just another reason to never go to NY. Golly I hope their aim is better than the ja-mokes with their Glocks…

  21. I don’t understand. Why do they need to arm themselves after the “safe act?” I thought now that no one has any weapons, New York must be safe?

    Disarm citizens then arm to the teeth? Something about that seems very wrong and makes me so glad I live in a free state…

    I visited New York over the holidays and walked past 2 officers with m4’s and one of them was holding the gun horizontally effectively muzzle flashing every person walking past the Christmas tree in Rockefeller… He had his gun pointed at what, 500,000 people that walk through there a day? I live in Texas, and don’t bat an eye at the now legal open carried weapons, but the cop in New York had me nervous… Something about that doesn’t add up, but I guess that’s why I won’t ever be giving up my arms…

    • Oh, it’s all about the symbolism. Muzzle sweeping the citizens isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.

      The official arms of officialdom can each have their own personal full-auto whatever they want. Meanwhile the proles can’t have toys that even represent such things. Thus the gap defining who is in charge of whom is relentlessly enforced.

      So, the guardian of the celebration sweeping the citizenry just reinforces the message: your fate is in our hands; you have no opinion abut what is safe or not; it ain’t our job to keep you safe, anyway; we will do what we judge right, imposing what consequences on you we think best.

      BTW, why face *in* toward the people you are protecting? You fact toward the threat. So, the message is, you, citizen, are the threat. It’s of a piece with rousting people who video the cops from their own porch, for example.

      Repeat as needed until everybody gets it.

  22. You guys don’t understand why they need full auto for their new rifles: they figure that they’ll shoot them more accurately after the mandatory 15 lb NYC triggers are put in.

  23. So long they denied your right to open carry any non abc weapon inside new york city at any public place they should not have any art of gun”s !!

  24. For this report to be completely factual, and worthwhile, it really should have established which model/s of the M4 Commando the NYPD is purchasing. Because there are three models. And what a difference there is between them!

    LE6933 Safe-Semi, 11.5″ Barrel
    R0933 (NSN 1005-01-581-2925) Safe-Semi-Auto, 11.5″ Barrel
    R0935 Safe-Semi-Burst, 11.5″ Barrel

  25. I knew a Vietnam Vet who was a Sergeant in the A-Shau Valley who never fired his M-16 in full auto the whole time of his tour of duty.
    Dad was in the Luzon Campaign and usually only fired his BAR or Thompson in 2-3 round bursts. Dad did teach some LEOs to fire full auto after the war, and they were really bad at it.
    The FBI used to state that if confronted by criminals armed with a machine pistol, shotgun, or pistol; the guy with the shotgun was to be taken out first.
    Full auto is not quite the battle saviour that people thinks it to be.

  26. The justification is stated as “active shooter” concerns. Here I would note that in the United States, it seems as though active shooters are mostly single individuals, not pairs or teams. I would add that many NYC officers do travel in pairs or teams. I would further note that NYPD officers do not have a record of stellar marksmanship or trigger finger discipline. That is, from time to time, they, the policemen, hit a surprising number of innocent bystanders. In fact, sometimes the number of innocent bystanders hit by police gunfire is larger than the number of bad guys hit by police gunfire.

    Now back to the original point. NYPD is going full auto?? Well, I suppose it will be good for them that our legal system blames any of their bad marksmanship on the felon. Spray away.

  27. so we’re giving the storm troopers at NYPD full autos? They already can’t hit shit and we’re going to give them more firepower?

    How about we give them semi automatic phones, then guns, then fully automatic phones and then fully automatic guns. See if they can hit the damned buttons first for each step. I bet they’ll manage to kill 7-10 innocents with the semi-automatic phones.

  28. NY cops are upping their game huh?.. No more bullets being negligently discharged one at a time?.. It’s going to be a real party when mag dumpapalooza starts..Justification of death by a hundred rounds will be as widely accepted as an Andy Parker interview explaining the personal loss of his “daughter”, This should be good..

  29. NYPD ESU Has had fully auto MP5’s and M4’s for over a decade.

    They are held to a much higher standard in firearms training.

    But NYPD has other Units out in the High Profile tourist areas mostly to make people “feel safe” all dressed out with heavy vests and long arms. The Stratigic Deployment Unit….. They are NOT ESU Members .

  30. This is disgusting the residents of NYC and New York cannot buy a ar15 that even resembles what the NYPD is going to purchase. Let alone the exact same model . We POTG need to write or call all manufactures of firearms, accessories and ammuntion. To request that they stop supporting repairing and selling to. Federal and state agency. Until the citizenry have the same unhindered access to firearms. Let us use our purchasing power to compel a legislative change.

  31. Shame on Colt for selling them a none SAFE Act compliant rifle.

    No LEO carve out, they should get the bolt guns with 7 round mags like the civilians do.

  32. I, or my fire team, seldom used full auto in VN. Those M-16s (original) were too quick to dump 20 rds. We found it best to spread rounds out over area semi auto fire as needed. Letting off 20 rounds with little effect negated the theory of lighter rifle, lighter rounds, carry more (we did not have all the catch me, kiss me, screw me attachments they have today). Killing one bush with 20 rounds, what were we going to kill it’s buddies with? If you think a rifleman firing semi auto can’t make you bob and weave, or dead, try it sometime.

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