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NYPD police gun discharge study
Pdf here. A number of interesting results. A majority of shots were fired at 1-2 yards, and hit rate was only 43% at that range (both results not uncommon, actually). At 3-7 yards this drops to 23%, then at 8-15 yards rises again to 40%. Perhaps the officers have the ability to take better aim there, or maybe it's a fluke of the small sample size,
What's very interesting is that only 45% occurred on duty, in uniform. 36% were, I assume, undercover, and 18% off duty and out of uniform. From the individual reports, many of the undercover shootings did not involve a gunfight with the suspect: the officer was investigating one event when he saw an unrelated crime taking place (in one case, bank robbers had the bad luck to try to car-jack an undercover officer).
32 shootings were dog-related, 28 involving pit bulls.
On the less pleasant side, 26 accidental discharges, which fortunately resulted in no deaths but several injuries.
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A 1-2 yard shooting sounds a lot like an officer wrestling for control of his gun. It's a lot harder to aim when there is a 2-300 pound man attached to the barrel.
"28 involving pit bulls" Yah, sure. I've met some (real) pit bulls, and they are the most inoffensive dogs, with respect to humans, ever bred. Bumptious and clownlike, most of them, but capable of killing any Rottweiler, or Dobermann Pinscher, or German Police Dog, or any of the common Schweinhuende. That's why the cops dislike them, in my humble opinion. Note that the three breeds of dogs most commonly used to go after humans and bite them were bred by Germans. The American Pit Bull, like its British ancestors, was bred to be nice to humans and mean to other dogs.
As a native Georgian, all four of whose great-grandfathers served honorably against the United States of America, I loathe and despise the very memory of the existence of Bill Sherman and intend to piss on his grave if I ever find myself in St. Louis.
That said, his men had one good idea when "marching through Georgia", they summarily killed any dog which looked like a bloodhound or was otherwise bred to go after humans
I'm sure there are many reasons for this, but I doubt those super heavy triggers are much help.