---
title: "When Exactly Should You Use A Shotgun? Check This Gritty 1970s Police Training Video"
date: "2018-03-15"
modified: "2018-03-15"
authors:
  - name: "Jared Keller"
    job_title: "Former Managing Editor"
    link: "https://taskandpurpose.com/authors/jaredkeller/"
url: "https://taskandpurpose.com/tech-tactics/shotgun-police-training-video/"
categories:
  - "Guns"
  - "Tactics"
  - "Tech & Tactics"
  - "Training"
  - "Weapons"
tags:
  - "video"
---

# When Exactly Should You Use A Shotgun? Check This Gritty 1970s Police Training Video

![](<https://taskandpurpose.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/02/18987397-1.png>)

Here at Task & Purpose, we're tremendous fans of the retro training video. A technicolor artifact from a simpler time, they're a captivating (and inadvertently hilarious) windows into the U.S. armed forces of yesteryear, from the life of a Vietnam-era Huey door gunner to a Marine Corps Reserve recruiting officer.

But hey, they're also informative! Like this 15-minute 1976 training video on when, exactly, you should keep your sidearm holstered and go fucking buck wild with your trusty pump-action shotgun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYTzNlGLHEo

Yes, it's civilian law enforcement, and yes, it's not exactly a love letter to the trusty Mossberg that's the breaching weapon of choice for anyone itching to throw down. But by God, the Pasadena Police Department basically created a short hard-boiled cop film, complete with urban gunfire. I mean, it opens with basically the *worst possible way you can use a shotgun:*

![](<https://taskandpurpose.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/02/image-placeholder-title-162.gif>)

Joking aside, the video's message doesn't bode well for the shotgun-obsessed: it's more a cautionary tale regarding the awesome and often uncontrollable power of military-grade buckshot. "A shotgun is a wrong weapon in just about any situation where you can expect innocent people to be nearby," the narrator scowls. "In a busy area like this, there are too many elements you can't control."

So why carry one? Simple: "You can whirl, fire, and blow the guy away."

![](<https://taskandpurpose.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/02/image-placeholder-title-163.gif>)

These training videos are courtesy of the diligent [Jeff Quitney.](<https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM-kjdrQge9AACfB3MSRyrg>) If you need me, I'll be over here drinking bourbon and wondering what the hell I just watched.

## Author
Jared Keller is the former managing editor of Task & Purpose. His writing has appeared in Aeon, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the New Republic, Pacific Standard, Smithsonian, and The Washington Post, among other publications.

### Author social links  
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