Kimber SIS

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Many like to think of SWAT as an exclusive group. It isn’t easy to get onto a SWAT team, what with all the training required. Well, there is an even smaller group, at least in the Los Angeles Police Department the Special Investigation Section. The average time “on the job” for applicants is 15 years. You have to be a detective just to apply, and you have to have proven yourself with many successful investigations. Why? Because SIS goes after the baddest of the bad.

I flew out to Los Angeles to see the guns and the officers of SIS. What I found were not the fire-breathing chargers of many a police story. What I found was a dedicated group of officers who wanted to find the bad guys, apprehend them and then go home safely at night. How bad are the bad guys they search for? When I asked for a thumbnail description of the miscreants, one of the officers simply described them as “having a high propensity toward violence.”

Hmm, must be pretty exciting, eh? No, the job (again, in the words of another officer) involves “sitting in a car 12 hours a day.” Sitting and waiting, and when the bad guy shows up, or commits another crime, arresting him. Often with SWAT as backup, but sometimes by themselves. To do that, you’d want a dependable sidearm (and lots of buddies with dependable firearms, too).