Sheriff’s office gets assault rifles
Concerned about being outgunned, the Sangamon County sheriff’s office is equipping deputies with AR-15s.
The civilian version of the military-issue M16 rifle that’s become a weapon of choice for mass shooters comes with a 30-round magazine, and each deputy will carry two extras, giving them 90 rounds of ammo. Deputies also carry shotguns and 40-caliber Glock 22 handguns equipped with 15-round magazines.
Deputies have been allowed to carry their own assault rifles, and members of the department’s tactical team that serves search warrants and responds to high-risk incidents have long been issued AR-15s, said chief deputy Joe Roesch. The decision to issue an AR-15 to every deputy was a matter of making sure all deputies are prepared for the worst, he said.
“It’s 100 percent a matter of safety, not just the safety of our officer, but the safety of the public as well,” Roesch said.
Even with 30-round magazines, deputies could still find themselves at a firepower disadvantage, given that 40-round magazines sell for as little as $10 and manufacturers offer couplers that allow shooters to connect magazines together side-by-side to allow, in the words of one online dealer, “for more efficient speed reloads.” An AR-15 sells for as little as $429 on www.grabagun.com, one of many online gun retailers, with financing available and a flat $7.99 shipping charge.
Police departments often get a discount when shopping for guns, and the sheriff’s office is spending $27,500 for 50 rifles made by Rock River, an Illinois manufacturer. It works out to $550 per gun.
“That’s a heckuva price,” Roesch said. A civilian would have to pay $800 or more for such a weapon, he said.
“They’re well made, they’re durable and they’re safe,” he said. “It’s a good choice for several reasons. The function of the rifle itself, it’s easy to learn and very inherently accurate.”
Tactical team members and the 15 deputies who carried their own rifles last year are already certified to use AR-15s, Roesch said, and so 18 deputies will need to be trained to carry the new guns. The guns are semiautomatic, which means that every round requires its own trigger pull, as opposed to being automatic weapons that keep firing so long as the trigger is engaged.
“We don’t think that’s necessary for our patrol deputies,” Roesch said.
Roesch said it could take a few months before all deputies are trained and equipped.
“I fully expect by the first of the summer, everyone in the sheriff’s office will be carrying an AR,” he said.
The rifles will allow deputies to shoot from a longer distance than possible with existing weaponry issued by the department, Roesch said, which improves the chances of saving lives if a mass shooting breaks out in a school or mall. The safety of deputies is also important, he added. Recent statistics, he said, suggest that the number of officers killed by gunshots is on the rise. Ambush shootings from afar such as occurred in Dallas last summer, when five officers were killed and nine wounded by a man angry about police shootings, are on the minds of police, he added.
The National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund recently reported that 64 of the 135 law enforcement officers who died in the line of duty last year were felled by gunshots, and 21 of those deaths were ambush shootings. It was a 56-percent increase in gunshot deaths compared to 2015, according to the organization, and gunshots killed more cops than anything else. It was the highest death toll from firearms since 2011.
“Obviously, nationwide, there’s been numerous incidents where police officers have been ambushed,” Roesch said. “Oftentimes with these mass shootings and these ambushes, the perpetrators were carrying rifles.”
Contact Bruce Rushton at [email protected].
