No, it's based on some hand-waving about "terror threats" due to us helping NATO alienate people in the Middle East. The "threats" are classified (but really dangerous, ok, trust us, wink-wink) -- and no one's tried to explain how moving the handguns from lock-boxes in the police command cars to the hips of random patrol officers are supposed to help counter these "terror threats".

I was recently at a music festival with some ~3000 people -- and a couple of police officers with handguns. I have a hard time divining a scenario where those guns are going to help. If the aim was to be able to shoot attackers, at least some snipers at an elevated vantage point with low-power ammunition might have had a chance at taking someone out without endangering the crowds too much.

On the other hand, if the crowd went mad an rioted, you can be sure that the end result would've been that someone in the crowd would've ended up in possession of those guns.