However, as gun rights fanatic as I am, I am somewhat convinced that automatics do not belong in untrained hands.
Well, I’m trained, I’ll take one. However, I’ve never really heard a good explanation for why police departments need fully automatic weapons either. I can’t put together a scenario, no matter how well armed the bad guys are, that spray and pray would be the best tactic.
I've heard of one instance of an assault rifle being used by police in a situation that seemed to warrant it - the 1973 New Orleans sniper incident ended when an NOPD officer in a helicopter used an M16 to kill the sniper atop a downtown hotel. I think, though, that the M16 was actually privately owned, not police dept. property.