In the early eighties, [Miami Chief of Police John F. Timoney] was placed in charge of reviewing firearm use and became deeply interested in reforms, announced in 1972, that restricted how and when police could use their weapons. What he discovered was that, in the year before the restrictions were imposed, New York police fired their weapons about eight hundred times, and some ninety people were killed; dozens more were wounded. About a dozen officers were killed.

The pattern changed dramatically after August, 1972, when the prohibition was announced: according to Timoney, shootings in the last third of that year dropped by fifty per cent. "Without anything. Just issuing a policy," he said. "No training. No big announcements at roll calls. You get down to 1985, when only twelve people are killed by the N.Y.P.D. Down from ninety to twelve.” No policemen were killed in 1985. Over the years, Timoney continued to refine what he had learned, but the most important lesson to him was that seemingly intractable problems could be solved.