Deadly Force: Firearms and American Law Enforcement, from the Wild West to the Streets of Today by Chris McNab

Deadly Force: Firearms and American Law Enforcement, from the Wild West to the Streets of Today by Chris McNab describes the history of the use of guns by police throughout American history.  This is published by Osprey.  Before this my experience with them was solely based on the various short heavily illustrated titles on different military topics.  This is 300 pages with only 2 photo inserts and not a 3D computer generated map in sight.  McNab argues convincingly that throughout time there's been increasing professionalism and militarization of police use of force.  The development of swat teams in the 1960s and 1970s specifically.  He sometimes gets bogged down in describing events.  In the introduction he claims that he's just going to give the facts without moral judgments.  Unfortunately he repeatedly does exactly that.  Defending police use of force by pointing out that they were scared.  Strangely he doesn't consider that this also extends to the other individual involved.  This is certainly not the last word on the topic but it is an interesting place to start.

Recommended.

Note:This book was provided through Librarything's early reviewer Program.