I AM A STRONG BELIEVER IN DIVERSITY for law enforcement agencies. While there are a number of folks who believe every American police officer should be a six-foot, lean and mean male, some of the best police officers I’ve ever worked with were small males and females who had a tremendous desire to serve as a police officer in their hometown. I will take a highly motivated person of small stature over a large, intimidating looking, but ambivalent male any day of the week. What a diverse pool of officers does create, however, is a serious challenge to equip them with gear they can use without compromise and one of the biggest challenges in this area is the duty sidearm.

While semi-autopistols have made this a bit easier to accomplish compared to revolvers, it is still not an optimal situation. The easiest way to address this is to just let the officer carry whichever gun they want, but many lack the knowledge to make a good choice, particularly a new recruit.