Police sidearm question.

[Boltgun]

The Police Service Act of Ontario was changed following a Labour Board running that the revolver was unsafe and ordering the province to change the act.
I don't recall the two cases that were brought before the Labour Board but I believe one was an officer in Sudbury who ran out of .38 in a gunfight.
The province had to comply with the Labour Board but allowed several years for the police forces to comply. The act allowed each force to determine it's own sidearm so long as it was 9mm or .40 and DAO or equalivent (ie Glock safe action). At first round nose ammunition was all that was allowed eek and had to be under 1000 fps. Hollow point (controlled expansion) ammuntion was allowed a couple of years later.
The unions backed the officers who filed the complaints with the Labour board, and the board did not find that the revolver was "unsafe" but that the limited capacity and slow reloading created an "unsafe condition" for the police (paraphrasing).

Good to see someone else is aware of the facts. I didn't want to get into the complete story, but you hit the nail on the head.

The revolver itself, isn't unsafe as a firearm. The context is when it is used for police duties it was deemed unsafe as a patrol firearm - for the reasons Forbes/hutton just described.

In regards to the hammer becoming cocked when getting out of the car, this happened many times. I am not aware of any discharges in the holster and subsequent thigh as a result of this issue though.
Boltgun

 

[Boltgun]

If there was ever positive proof pointing to why we should not allow politicians to run this country then this would be it.

A move to a change should have come from the police, through their union if need be, as a move towards providing them with the tools they need. If the Police union had made it a condition then the move would still have occurred without the need for a "law". Especially one that deemed the old revolvers as "unsafe".

Unfortunately, the cost was prohibitive to get the "politicians" to transition departments. As a result it took people dying to get the safety decision from the Ministry of Labour. Politicians had NO SAY if police got the guns. They only had a say in which gun and caliber. Further to that, I would be hard pressed to find a politician that probably even contributed to that process other than signing the cheques.

Now in regards to the switch from truncated FMJ's to Controlled Expansion, that was SERIOUSLY a political move. The Harris Gov't. basically allowed that as a "gimme" to the police when they came into power. This was after the Police Association of Ont, Senior Police Officer's Association and the Ont Association of Chiefs of Police banded together, in the first ever, and not since repeated, group effort to fight for controlled expansion rounds. The NDP refused to give them the ammo and timing kicked in...NDP lost election (because of incompetence, not the ammo issue) - The Harris government moved in and the ammo was approved.

Boltgun