Sidearms
Throughout the nineteenth century, police officers were armed with the cudgel which became known as a nightstick. A firearm was not typically provided by the police department, if the officer chose to carry one it was up to him to provide it at his expense. In many jurisdictions, officers were not permitted to carry firearms while on their beat. Gradually that prohibition eased as crime increased in American cities and towns.
New York’s police department was armed when Theodore Roosevelt became President of its Board of Commissioners in 1895, and Roosevelt, who as an avid outdoorsman knew a thing or two about firearms, decided it was time to standardize weapons for the department. Roosevelt ordered 4,500 Colt New Police revolvers for his officers, in .32 caliber. Roosevelt also recognized the need to train all of his officers in the weapon’s use and its maintenance, and standardized both.
During the early part of the twentieth century, other urban police departments followed Roosevelt’s lead, and by the 1920s most northern police departments issued the .38 Special to their officers, which began to be seen by many officers as ineffective against car bodies and heavy plate glass. Many departments changed to the .357 Magnum when that caliber became available in the mid-1930s, including the only recently armed FBI.
Officers in southern and western communities generally preferred heavier calibers, but throughout the country, the policeman on the beat was armed with a revolver as a general rule. Semi-automatic pistols were available through most of the twentieth century, but police agencies disregarded them for the most part, other than as the backup weapon which many officers carried on their own, at their own expense.
In 1967 the Illinois State Police were issued 9mm semi-automatics as their sidearm, the first semi-automatic to be issued to a large department. By the 1980s many departments had changed to semi-automatics and by the turn of the century, nearly all urban and suburban police departments had equipped their officers with semi-automatic pistols. Polymer-based semi-automatics were the rule by the 1990s in nearly all police departments.