[marktwain]

.380s were most often the cheap kind back then and notorious for firing a little low.

Lots of high quality .380 pistols in the 90's. Walthers, Brownings, Colts.

But hard to say what an officer was carrying. Most do not carry junk.

[familyop]

"Lots of high quality .380 pistols in the 90's. Walthers, Brownings, Colts.

But hard to say what an officer was carrying. Most do not carry junk."

Back then, many police had only started to carry semi-autos for duty weapons (open carry), and quite a few of the older ones still carried revolvers. Very few people had heard or seen anything about the Internet.

Many still carried smaller revolvers concealed, when they were off-duty. It was too fast and easy for some of the firearms dealers to sell semi-autos that were very popular with many of their non-police customers at the time: Saturday night specials.

People who wanted to try something new either needed to study or were at the mercy of the dealers (the experts, heh). I was only trying a new semi-auto then (a Glock). Revolvers were more familiar, and .38s still seemed to make more sense to me than .380s.

[familyop]

The Internet: a great tool for learning.