The picture shows it on a service pistol, not a revolver. Most newly manufactured service pistols have a rail under the barrel for attaching lights. I know of no revolvers that do.

I admittedly don’t know much about guns, but that can’t be good for your aiming ability.

Nah, it affects it somewhat, maybe, but that’s what practice is for, right? I have one pistol with a rail and I noticed no difference with it on or with it off.

I’m not sure why a camera and light have to be so cumbersome on a gun when you can fit them in a pair of glasses.

Two reasons that I can think of: 1) You’d want long battery life on this (figure the average cop turns the camera on at the start of his shift and turns it off at the end, so it’s gotta go for 8 hours or so “on”[otherwise they'd all just "forget" to turn on the camera]). The current bright ass lights that mount under pistols are roughly that size and have about an hours worth of super bright light before you have to swap the batteries out. And 2) it needs to be rugged enough to survive the average cops day, and an un-average day of being dropped, slammed into walls, thrown about in a car crash, etc. and still keep on tickin’.

How do you holster (and draw!) a gun like that?

There are two choices. One is to keep the light/camera in a cellphone-like holster on the belt and attach it after the pistol is drawn (although that’s a bad idea). The other is to have a holster made which will fit the gun with the light/camera attached. There are several out there already which fit popular service pistol/light combos. If this catches on you can bet that the police equipment manufacturers will all come out with something soon.

I think it’s a great idea, the light/camera combo. I think we all agree that the dashboard cams have been a Good Thing, I think this will be an even better thing.

There are plenty of things that go on the end of firearms: flashlights, laser pointers, bayonets, grenade launchers. Granted those last two aren’t common on pistols :) Still, it would only take one training session to overcome any difference in weight, and it would affect speed rather than accuracy anyways.

That being said, there are plenty of custom designed holsters for Gun X with Option Y, so I’m sure that there’s one for this combination too.

I wonder how you effectively field test something like this when those using it in the field may well be quite hostile to its adoption.

@Ed G, Thanks for the link to the much better newspaper story on this! I updated my post.

it can’t be that bad for it either. adjusting to the weight might change the way you bring the weapon to bear, but shouldn’t affect aim. lots of weapons have optional add ons, flashlights, laserscopes etc. The unit doesn’t weigh that much.

its funny this was posted, i totally said that something like this should be developed in a boing boing comments section a few weeks ago. It makes so much sense.

Equilibrium FTW! ;)

Officer: “Freeze!”

Thief: “Eek! The police!”

Officer: “Put your han… wait a minute.”

Thief:

Officer: (fiddles)

Thief:

Officer: *click* Damn.

Thief: I think you have to press it halfway to focus.

Officer: I did press it!

Thief: No, only halfway.

Officer: Like this? *click*

Thief: No, no, you just took another picture.

Officer: Oh, I see what you mean. OK. Hang on.

Thief:

Officer: Move a little to the right.

Thief: But then I’m staring right into the sun!

Officer: But if you’re facing the other way, the sun’s in the camera. That’s no good. It won’t come out.

Thief: How about here? (squints) I think I can stand here for a few seconds.

Officer: Perfect. Put your hands up. 3.. 2.. ::click::

Thief: Whenever you’re ready.

Officer: No, I took the picture already.

Thief: I didn’t see the flash go off.

Officer: The little lightning bolt is lit up, though.

Thief: Yeah, but the flash didn’t go off.

It’s like I’m freakin’ Kreskin or something.

Also, I am sure they won’t often capture what they should have when it matters, both because they weren’t pointing at it (officer is exhibiting safe use of firearm) and because they are…. uhmm… damaged sometimes when it suits a dirty cops ends.

A secondary very useful purpose is in training new cops. Copcarcams have resulted in tons of video that would be very interesting to an aspiring police officer but wouldn’t make YouTube because the reality is that the vast majority of cops are good and the vast majority of what cops do is really boring.

I went to school, blah blah. I come home, jump on the RSS reader and lo and behold- the blogosphere buzzing about this news. And it’s happening right next door to me (figuratively).

Obviously this is not a feeling you silicon valley-ers get to feel very often. All kinds of awesome shit happens right next to you guys.

However when the backwoods not-new-york-city not-southern-california Orange County (where I live) gets talked about, I feel so close to celebrity that my heart goes a little bit faster.

Thanks for making my heart go a little bit faster.

1. When a cop has to make a split second decision he doesn’t need to worry that he can’t get his gun out of his holster quickly and easily.

2. This doesn’t record the events leading up to the gun being drawn. Basically, you only get half the story.

ROFLMAO!!!!

I have personally observed the local sheriff’s dept pointing 3 AR-15 or M16 (couldn’t see da switch with my binoculars) for no reason at all. Someone walked the main road there over 100 yards from them. That person was a 60-some-year old woman who posed no danger in anyone’s imagination. They did this to several people throughout the day while crawling on top of a building, trying to look through holes, and waiting for the pot related warrant.

I guess all cops follow their training? Around here they sometimes enter dwellings without a warrant or p/c saying things like “I am the LAW you hippie!” (heard that one myself too)