China's Type79 Submachine Gun Persists in Modernized Form

"One shot, one kill with 7.62×25 mm Tokarev. Someone is having hamburger for dinner tonight."

The CCTV PR video and the Shanghai police shooting

A blog post on china‑defense.blogspot.com reports that a recently released PR video from CCTV (China Central Television) shows a single shot killing of a runaway mad cow by Shanghai police using a Type 79 submachine gun. The post presents the clip as a public‑safety piece and highlights the weapon’s unexpected prominence in the footage.

The Type 79’s reported calibers and the apparent contradiction

The post quotes a one‑line quip attributing the shot to "7.62×25 mm Tokarev," while elsewhere in the same entry the Type 79 is described as a "79式 9×19 mm submachine gun." The blog does not reconcile those two descriptions; it records both the one‑shot comment and the 9×19 designation in its account of the CCTV material.

Visible modernizations: stock, rail, and red‑dot sight

According to the post, the Type 79 shown in the video is a police‑issue example and displays a set of modernized accessories. The blog notes an updated stock, an accessory rail, and a red‑dot‑style sight are "clearly visible" on the weapon, characterizing these as modest official upgrades that allow an older design to remain in service in 2026.

Continuity of "forever" platforms and prior public displays

The post places the Type 79’s persistence alongside other long‑lived Chinese platforms: the Type 59 main battle tank, the Y‑5 transport, and the CJ‑6 trainer. It also links the current footage to earlier visual coverage of the Type 79’s tactical modifications. The blog cites a December 18, 2024 entry titled "Crazy Type79 tactical mod continues" that described PAP activity upgrading the vintage 7.62×25mm Type 79 with accessories, and a February 23, 2018 post showing photos of Guangzhou City's Thunder SWAT—identified in 2011 coverage as one of 36 SWAT units in that southern city—"showing off" their Type 79s.

How CCTV, Shanghai police, and the PAP/Guangzhou Thunder SWAT are implicated

• CCTV: The broadcaster is presented here as the source of a public‑safety PR video in which the Type 79 features prominently. The clip is framed in the blog as a deliberate piece of public messaging that nevertheless spotlights a vintage weapon platform.
• Shanghai police: The blog attributes the single‑shot killing of a runaway mad cow to Shanghai police using a Type 79, implying operational use of the platform in a civilian safety context rather than a strictly tactical one.
• PAP and Guangzhou City's Thunder SWAT: Earlier posts collected by the blog portray both the People's Armed Police and Guangzhou’s Thunder SWAT as actors who have modernized and publicly displayed Type 79s, investing in accessories such as updated stocks and optics that appear in more recent footage.

What the footage signals about equipment choices and messaging

The blog frames the Type 79 as a "venerable" weapon that "should have been retired years ago" yet continues to be modernized and used in official media. The juxtaposition of a public‑safety video and visibly upgraded, police‑issue Type 79s underscores two linked facts recorded in the source material: older platforms are being kept in service with modest modern accessories, and state media is incorporating those platforms into PR content.

Whether described in the blog as firing 7.62×25 mm or as a 9×19 mm variant, the Type 79’s continued appearance—in CCTV footage of a Shanghai police response and in prior PAP and SWAT imagery—points to a pattern the blogger summarizes as a parade of "forever" platforms that "simply refuse to disappear."

https://china-defense.blogspot.com/2026/10/video-of-day-single-shot-killing-of-run.html