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Saved you a click: It's to prevent friendly fire during a shootout.
by millzlane 6y ago
Saved you a click: It's to prevent friendly fire during a shootout.
- aeoleonn 6y agoThat's what I figured-- it's fairly obvious: "why would unrecognizable cops have a symbol on their weapon?" "Gee, maybe so other cops know they're cops?". Why this is news or on hackernews is beyond me though.
- jjulius 6y ago>That's what I figured-- it's fairly obvious: "why would unrecognizable cops have a symbol on their weapon?" "Gee, maybe so other cops know they're cops?". What's obvious to some is not always obvious to others. >Why this is news or on hackernews is beyond me though. TheDrive isn't so much a news website as it is a magazine. This article is more informative than anything, and going back to my previous remark, it educates those who might not've thought about this sort of thing before. As to why it's on HN, same reason; not everybody would assume as much.
- varjag 6y agoCome on, the whole article is mostly rephrasing of the same statement interspersed with tweetquotes. Written to meet word count quota.
- jjulius 6y ago>Come on... ... what? I haven't commented on the quality of the article at all. Perhaps your confusion lies in my saying, "This article is more informative than anything...", but that was just me saying that the article was written as an informative piece, not a piece of news, because TheDrive is a magazine and not necessarily a news outlet.
- andyjohnson0 6y agoFwiw it wasn't obvious to me until I read the article. I know nothing at all about guns. So I learned something.
- jjoonathan 6y agoI know about digital IFF but I had never given much thought to "old school analog" IFF. I sort of assumed that uniforms were the primary mechanism, but obviously they can be spoofed, and with "tacticool" fashion as prevalent as it is they can be trivially spoofed. I never gave it enough thought to think up or chase down the actual solution. "They hand out gun stickers" is a delightfully simple and practical answer. This is the best bit of trivia I've learned all day.
- hsbauauvhabzb 6y agoNot really. If you can spoof a uniform you can spoof a sticker. And given it’s not a reliable negative identifier, it’s probably not a huge help anyway.
- jjoonathan 6y agoYou can't spoof a sticker you don't know about, because they handed it out that day. It's a shared secret.
- hsbauauvhabzb 6y agoCool, fta just said some had stickers and some didn’t. Now you’re just adding confusion into the mix.
- Animats 6y agoIn the 1980s, the NYPD used elastic headbands. There was a color or pattern for the day, and plainclothes cops were issued the proper headband at the station. I wonder what they're using now, headbands being so over.
- jsheard 6y agoThey use armbands now: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nypd-arm-bands/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nypd-arm-bands/
- zaphirplane 6y agoIt could be to keep track of the official weapon, which would imply they have another one with questionable purpose
- mikestew 6y agoThe only thing "obvious" is that your hypothesis coincidentally lined up with the actual reason...this time.
- dafoex 6y agoI guessed this before clicking, but its still interesting to know it exists. My next question is are they like invasion stripes on an aeroplane - i.e. they are changed before an operation so the enemy can't copy them - or are they coded depending on factors like rank or specific training, like the shapes on UK police cars?
- gnabgib 6y agos/It's/It might be/ While the article implies it has the answer (including with the title).. it's clear they're speculating and don't have the answer. A quote from someone who is qualified to speculate: "is not a totally uncommon practice"
- onlyrealcuzzo 6y agoWait. How does one have time to see a small piece of tape on a gun before making a decision to shoot someone with a gun pointed at you?
- peteradio 6y agoThere are a lot more common scenarios than the "split second don't shoot reaction" scene from every movie ever. From the videos I've seen a lot of officers were co-mingling with the "protesters", it would be nice to ID someone easily who *isn't* pointing a gun at you but who also has a gun.
- TaylorAlexander 6y agoThey don’t. But if you see someone else with a gun before they see you, it might give some idea as to who they are.
- evgen 6y agoIt is so you can flash the side of your gun at someone else in a dark/smoky/obscured room and they can see the signal, but you don't need to completely surrender situational initiative. The tape is reflective to help in this case. The person flashing the sign knows it is not 100% certain to work, but it better than metallic crickets or pass phrases.
- masklinn 6y agoHabit. They're trained to take in the scene in order to e.g. evaluate if they have a safe shot. Even if it only works some of the time, every time it works is a gain.
- matt-attack 6y agoIs it better to not even have a chance to work? Not sure why the choice has to be between a 100% effective solution and a "better than nothing" solution. It's like saying to the Fire Extinguisher salesman, "But what if the fire is too big and I run out of propellant? No thanks I'm not going to own one."
- jstarfish 6y ago
- stareatgoats 6y agoYea thanks, and now any and all potential misdeeders will attach it to their Glocks ...
- snowwrestler 6y agoObviously they will change the tape now that this version has been burned.
- overscore 6y agoIf it's anything like military colour codes, they'd be swapped regularly as a matter of course.
- snowwrestler 6y agoI have no idea how often they swap, but generally speaking, Federal agents unholster their weapons in public very rarely. So, there is probably not as much need for frequent rotation compared to the military.
- overscore 6y agoThey may have a "colour of the day" and routinely swap them. Hard to know how they're affixed, though - they don't look very swappable.
- irscott 6y agoCould be something as simple as hook and loop tape. One side is permanently/semi-permanently affixed to the slide the other side gets swapped based on x criteria. That's how I'd do it. The military loves velcro.
- overscore 6y agoTrue, but the photos don't seem to show the depth that hook-and-loop would add. That, and even the milimetre that hook-and-loop would add could impede draw and reholstering. I was in a non-US military and we used electrical tape - two or three strips around rifle magazines.