Pasadena : Police Buy 3 Machine Guns
The Pasadena Police Department has purchased three machine guns that officers will use instead of shotguns when they are forced to storm buildings during narcotics raids and serve search warrants, Lt. Bruce Linsenmayer said.
The MP-5 machine guns are a more accurate and less powerful alternative to the shotguns the department uses during hazardous-entry situations, he said.
“The shotgun is too powerful and too uncontrollable,” Linsenmayer said. “When you fire a shotgun, you’ve got 21 .30-caliber pellets flying around. The MP-5 shoots the same bullet officers use in their handguns . . . it’s very accurate, and much less prone to ricochets.”
A traffic stop last New Year’s in which officers came under fire from an AK-47 assault rifle and the high number of automatic weapons seized during recent raids encouraged the department to buy the $1,800 machine guns.
“We’re coming across more and more automatic weapons all the time,” he said.
The MP-5 has been used for several years by the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and special police units in Alhambra, Arcadia and Monrovia.
Pasadena has had automatic weapons as part of its police arsenal since the 1930s.
The MP-5s will replace the department’s 1970s-era AR-180 machine guns, Linsenmayer said.
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