Re: FBI re-evaluation of issue weapons ->Re: Armored cars

["Robert J. Hansen" <rjhansen@xxxxxxxx>]

> Actually, there would be minimal cost increases, buying 1500 Glock 17s
> would be ALMOST the same cost as buying 500 Beretta 92FSs, 500 Smith &
> Wesson SW99s, and 500 Sig P229s.

Doesn't factor into the required costs of training Bureau armorers for all
the new weapons; getting all Bureau firearms trainers qualified with new
weapons; the logistical cost of maintaining three separate, redundant weapon
systems; the cost of evaluating three new weapon systems; etc.  If your
reasoning was all there was to it, the Army would let officers choose
between the .45 M1911A1, the 9mm M9, the 9mm M11 and .38 revolvers made by a
variety of manufacturers--after all, all of those are currently in the Army
arsenal and issued to various different kinds of officers, so why not permit
any officer to choose which of those weapons s/he wishes to be issued as a
sidearm?

The answer is... logistics.

Air crews get either the .38 or the M11.  (The .38s are being phased out, as
I recall.)  So do some law-enforcement personnel.

Everybody else gets the M9.

> And if there is a price difference who pays it? the taxpayers?  So
> every taxpayer will have to pay an additional $0.25.  Mininmal when

If there's a price difference, it's more likely to come out of the FBI's
/fixed budget/ than it is anything else.  If the Army can't procure all the
M24 sniper rifles they want because Congress objects to the $5,000 per rifle
cost, what makes you think Congress is going to tell the FBI that "oh, sure,
spend whatever you need; we'll just pass all the costs on to the taxpayer"?

Congresscritters who do that tend to discover the electorate really doesn't
like being taxed.  :)