A friend of mine started a post on social media about whether or not civilian LE “needs” automatic weapons. At last check there are over 600 comments on that post.

I will put it out there right now, we do not. Further we should not have guns that have the capability. Agencies that can’t afford guns and who get 1033 M16’s should remove the auto sear so that there is no chance in hell that gun can ever be accidentally flipped to AUTO.

I cannot come up with a single scenario where auto would do something that Semi won’t. In my carbine classes I run a test on guys with the auto guns using a shot timer. We pre-load a magazine with ten rounds, guns are required to start on safe. Using a shot timer, we record the ten shots, me using semi and them using auto. In most cases I can typically fire 6 rounds faster than most guys can get their FIRST round off. There are some large handed dudes that are faster and small handed folks that are slower. No science or collection of data, just 9 years of testing this in every carbine class I’ve taught. But that isn’t the actual measurement we are looking to get at, because what if I’m like freaky fast? So we run it again, this time they are compete against themselves. In EVERY case they are far faster getting shots off going from Safe to Semi. Speed matters.

Last step is that proof is in the pudding as it relates to accuracy. In the test above everyone’s semi group is far tighter. “But, but, but….all of my auto rounds are still on the target!”. I get it, I spent many years with an MP5 as my primary and an Auto Colt Commando. Then, like now, I took great pride in my skill at arms and worked hard to be as good as I could be. I could absolutely run a 30 round group into a small target on demand. On the range. Fighting paper. Whether I could do that or not in a real gunfight was never tested, but I would suspect the answer is I could not.

There are lots of examples from around the country of well trained guys losing control of the gun under stress. There are also stories of poorly trained guys flipping it too far, and then releasing a burst instead of a single. Both instances are bad, probably embarassing and in at least one case deadly to a small child.

When I weigh out the consequences for these events compared to the actual necessity of auto, the answer is clear. There is absolutely NO LE circumstance where auto fire would save the day and semi wouldn’t. I routinely run the last stage of the popular 1/2 & 1/2 drill in less than two seconds with all hits. That’s ten rounds, sub 2 seconds. That is tremendous volume of fire, so for the dudes who will say what about suppressing terrorists in a Mumbai type incident? I say, do more aiming, but if you absolutely have to hose the area, I’m pretty sure ten rounds in less than two seconds will do it. If it won’t, I doubt a mag dump on auto would do it either.

Come to a class and I’ll show you.