Damn, it's not every day you see a time traveler come back in time to see the moment his own father was brought into existance by a meme on the internet.
They're becoming a lot more common. A lot of police departments didn't or don't allow them. Attitudes are changing fairly quickly, but there are a lot of old-timer gun people (including some who write policy for police departments) who see red dot sights as a gimmick, the same way weapon mounted lasers were in the 80s and 90s, or as a crutch to compensate for poor training.
They do have a couple of legit drawbacks like the possibility of the battery dying or the slim chance some part of the electronics might eventually break under force of the action cycling. And that's why you'll usually see guns with red dot optics having backup iron sights that co-witness with their dot. Also, a lot of pistol optics are open emitter designs which means, for people like cops who open carry, the optic is exposed to the weather and can collect rain, snow, or debris on the glass or between the glass and the emitter.
More and more departments are beginning to allow them though. Despite their drawbacks it's like having a cheat code for aiming. With traditional iron sights your eyes can either focus on your target or on your front sight, but not both. With red dot sights, you put the window on the target and put the dot where you want the bullet to go. You get to see your sight and your target in focus at the same time, and it's easier to keep both eyes open while you're shooting. So as these optics become more proven and "battle tested," more departments are starting to feel like the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
Thanks, this is actually good info. Obligatory, glad this officer didn't actually use his fancy red dot sight or he would've killed the unarmed, handcuffed, victim in the back of his car.
You didn't mention another drawback though: if you're dumping your mag without even looking at what you're shooting at because you have no idea what you're shooting at, fancy sights just add extra unnecessary weight, slowing down how quickly you can wildly swing your aim around.
With traditional iron sights your eyes can either focus on your target or on your front sight, but not both.
What in the world are you talking about? You have to focus on both to line up a shot. A trained soldier can line up a shot on a moving target at 300 feet and hit center mass in under 2.5 seconds.
Footage of a police shooting that occurred during November has came out. A cop detained a suspect who they believed to have a supressed gun, they cuff and search him finding no gun and put him in back of a police car. So the deputy was walking past the car when an acorn struck the car. He shouts "shots fired" and basically unloads on the car with the unarmed suspect while screaming he is hit. The other cops on the call also start unloading on the car and thankfully the person in the car was not hurt. So from the onset its a humorous story about a cop overreacting to a stimuli and we are only laughing because noone was killed in it (well I guess some people would still be laughing if it was deadly but probably less). The cop apparently was a vet, so this seems to be a case of PTSD and its not great that an officer was able to make it that far along while such a mundane stimuli was able to set them off possibly getting someone killed. Hopefully the officer in question gets the help they need but its clear they shouldn't be in that position at all if that is how they will react.
Really important to point out, PTSD or not, that police are trained to do this shit in a lot of cases and in the rest of them are not trained well enough to not do this shit. Police have been lobbying constantly for decades to make sure they have little oversight or training based on real world application. They've also made sure that they have no legal obligation to protect anyone but themselves. Cops have been trained to be dangerous to the public. It's not an accident, it's intentional.
That's horrible, how can a vet with PTSD get a job where he is allowed to carry a gun? That's the worst idea. Might as well let him patrol a loud and hectic arcade.
Thank you for the elaboartion though, banger meme nonetheless.
I hope he is forever dubbed "officer acorn" and made fun of for the rest of his life. Like officer bubbles. In reality, he's probably a police chief at the next town already
The cop should've known that the correct response to an acorn is to edit together a misleading video that makes it look like the acorn is committing crimes.