Well is it time to arm all frontline Police?

A horrible situation to be in.

It sounds like they did come very close to killing you, and had the ability to do just that if one of them had the intent to do so.

Many yrs ago, Gerry and the Pacemakers were playing at the Anglia Motel on the A17, my patrol area, there were 200 plus people there, a fight broke out, and I was sent, I managed to get hold of the one who had started the fight, and got him in a headlock using my wooden batton, as I was leading him out, I was set upon by others, and was knocked out cold by (Found out later, a pint mug) and ended up in Hospital,
Now, if I had had a gun in/on me in those circumstances, such was the mood of those who set upon me, they may well have seized my gun, and use it on me.
I would sooner wake up in Hospital alive, than the mortuary, however injured I was.

You can stick your guns, where the sun don’t shine, however, that’s just my opinion. based on 30 yrs.

Jim.
Lincoln .7

Just a quick impression gained from Googling. There seem to be quite a few cause celebre of the nature described.

But if you guys are happy with that and have whatever is ‘quite the contrary’ feeling about the UK’s normally unarmed police then that’s fine.

Moggy

A very quick Google finds that that may not be a universal opinion in Oz?

Seems a lot of issues about far too many unarmed youngsters, and mostly belonging to the countries original owners’, being executed on the streets?

Moggy

“Execute”: that’s quite a call you’ve made there. Do you have any evidence of that a member of an Aus police force had any premeditated intent to summarily “execute” anyone? Seriously, do you?

I’m pretty sure my views are very close to mainstream Australia. There will always be those who see things differently to most, but that doesn’t make the vast majority wrong.

Absolutely not. In fact, its quite the contrary.

A very quick Google finds that that may not be a universal opinion in Oz?

Seems a lot of issues about far too many unarmed youngsters, and mostly belonging to the countries original owners’, being executed on the streets?

Moggy

In the case of the Cumbria shootings the Police had clear view of the gun man but decided not to intervene due to the risk to themselves . If they had been armed a number of people might well be alive now.

I’ve used this comparison in the past…A UN report said the UK has a serious problem with youth drinking…among the worst in Europe. So why not raise the legal drinking age to 21? That would end a lot of youth drinking.
So now are you against draconian measures to solve a problem that affects a relative few?

Hmmm and prohibition in your country was a blinding success…

Not for us thanks Tribes……… UK Police; please, please stay unarmed.

Planemike

This thread seems to have gone down a UK vs US track, so for the sake of discussion I’ll add a non-UK and non-US perspective.

In Aus police are armed. The officer pulling you over for a random breath test will be armed, as will any officer turning up to your house if the neighbors have complained about the noise level from your party, as will an officer walking through a shopping mall or night club to take a shoplifter or drunk and violent member of the public into custody. That officer will invariably be carrying a firearm and pepper spray, and in some states/jurisdictions a Taser. In addition, each force has response groups that are equipped with assault rifles, full body armor and more.

Do police ever “go Rambo”? No. They are well trained, and know that all instances where a weapon is drawn or used will be subject to an internal professional standards review.

Are the public concerned? No. In fact the reverse is the case. The average Joe Anonymous wants the police to have the widest range of options available to them so they can effectively deal with whatever situation confronts them. And they want those officers to respond effectively when they arrive on the scene; not 15 or 30 minutes later when back up arrives after things have spiraled further out of control, or members of the public have been subject to further, avoidable trauma.

Other country’s are envious of our policing.

Absolutely not. In fact, its quit the contrary.

Sadly I do not think that arming the police will help at all, Crime statistics in countries where arms are carried by police do not differ much from ours at all. The taser is a far better tool for police in most cases as at least the person its used on can live to face justice.

This b8stard would of killed these two officers no matter what they were walking blindlly into his trap and I doubt anything would of helped them. This is what makes it even sadder the evil coward held all the cards so to speak.
I feel such a crime should lead to him hanging as should all mass killers and police killers,child killers etc. Justice needs to change to fit the crime, I know people runaway from the idea of the death penalty, but we give more rights to the criminal than the victim these days.

Personally I felt uneasy seeing so many police around London area with guns over the Olympics and Paralympics, It took away from the friendly face police generally have
As I understand that within a few minutes an armed response car can be on scene, I still feel this is the best way.

That’s a fair summary.

Interestingly though, if we take ‘we’ to mean the UK public, then we are more in favour of arming the police than the police are themselves.

An ICM poll in April 2004 found 47% supported arming all police, compared with 48% against. This comparing with the 82% of the police force against universal arming just two years later. Since 2006 however firearms offences have reduced by about 36%Moggy

The offences may have gone down, possibly because of various amnesties on submitting weapons owned without a licence. That tumbled the measurement stats.
The modern day “offence” however usually ends up in a death, be it gangs killing white folk for a trophy, or general gang warfare or just everyday uneducated, breath-wasting scum.

If we wish the police to continue not to carry weapons routinely -we have to accept that occasionally there will be incidents where they (the police) are unable to intervene in incidents due to the fact that they have no weapon immediately available.

That’s a fair summary.

Interestingly though, if we take ‘we’ to mean the UK public, then we are more in favour of arming the police than the police are themselves.

An ICM poll in April 2004 found 47% supported arming all police, compared with 48% against. This comparing with the 82% of the police force against universal arming just two years later. Since 2006 however firearms offences have reduced by about 36%

Moggy

In the case of the Cumbria shootings -the police had the offender in clear sight at one stage but didnt intervene due to knowing he was armed and they were not! I have not seen any real evidence to suggest that arming the police would start an escalation of gun ownership. Surely the people who carry out gang violence don’t really consider the morals of whether the police should be armed or not ! Essentially it seems to me that the people who consider they need guns tend to be in the criminal fraternity already – the incidents of policemen and women being killed is very low – I would suggest that the ownership of weapons is used as a means of power within the circles they inhabit.
If we wish the police to continue not to carry weapons routinely -we have to accept that occasionally there will be incidents where they (the police) are unable to intervene in incidents due to the fact that they have no weapon immediately available.

John.

“I recently saw on TV an English guy with 10 kids who lives off the dole.
But I know better than to assume that’s typical.”

I don’t know what the record is but Mick Philpott and his wife were charged in May with the murders of six of their children in a house fire. He was said at the time to have been the father of at least 17 children. But you’re right, it’s hardly typical, most serial fathers don’t resort to murdering six of their own to keep the numbers down.

“Here’s a hint, The Simpsons is not a documentary.”

By the same token, neither are Eastenders (T.V. to slash your wrists to), Coronation Street, Emmerdale or Downton Abbey. But I suppose Britain has to bear some responsibility for the creation of The Only Way Is Essex. 🙂

“I’ve used this comparison in the past…A UN report said the UK has a serious problem with youth drinking…among the worst in Europe. So why not raise the legal drinking age to 21? That would end a lot of youth drinking.
So now are you against draconian measures to solve a problem that affects a relative few?”

Skewed logic? I think we can all accept that in comparison with a number of other Nations, the US just being one of them, that gun crime in the UK does affect relatively few people. Which is probably why there is such a sense of shock and outrage when incidents like the two Policewomen killed the other day occur. We’re just not used to it. I looked up US gun homicides for 2009, the source being the Centre for Disease Control, a US Government Agency, and this showed that in the US that year there were 16,799 murders. Of those, 11,493 involved the use of firearms as the weapon. In the UK for 2010/2011 there were just 58 murders in which a gun was the lethal weapon out of a total of 636 murders. So, around 1 in 12 murders in the UK are committed with a firearm whereas in the US some two out of every three murders are committed with a firearm. John, you’re an intelligent man, surely those figures must tell you something? Things aren’t rosy now John, I doubt they ever will be. But Americans have always had the right to gun ownership so things aren’t going to change there unless something is done to control the prevalance of firearms.

As to the problem of underage drinking, it’s not a problem that affects a relative few. It impacts on all of us in one way ot other. Whether that’s because of increased violence, robbery and burglary to pay for the alcohol, increased anti social behaviour or because of the sheer numbers of under age drinkers who get absolutely paralytic and then waste the valuable time and resources of an already overstretched NHS. It’s the long term problems also. I think it was in the last year or two that a young Irishman died because he was refused a liver transplant on the grounds that the health professionals could not be certain he wouldn’t continue drinking. I believe he was around 21 years of age.

“I said was it’s a discussion worth having as opposed to pretending the UK is still a small villiage from some old film where everyone is honest, brave and trusting.
No one locks their doors and there is no crime.
If that place ever really existed, it certainly doesn’t today.”

John, two things with this. Firstly, I’m 51 years of age and I remember well being able to go out without locking the doors. Even in the town environment in which I live. People were trusting and looked out for each other. If someone hadn’t been seen for a day or two or the old chap’s milk was still on the doorstep the day after delivery someone would check up on them to see they were ok. But you are right in that it doesn’t exist today, hasn’t for the last thirty years in the area in which I live. But just because it doesn’t exist now doesn’t mean that it didn’t, or that we shouldn’t mourn its passing.

“And despite the lack of guns, 550 people were still murdered in the UK.
That shows, that even with few guns, bad stuff is still going to happen.
In the end, people kill people.”

You’re right, that is something you just can’t argue against but surely the numbers of people who kill each other bear significance to the debate. Using the figures from your own CDC and the British Office for National Statistics reveals a huge disparity in the rates. In 2010 the US had a population of almost 309 million people. In the UK in 2011 the population was just over 62 million. So the US population is, there or thereabouts, five times greater than the UK. Bearing that in mind then consider this. With a population five times that of the UK wouldn’t you expect the murder rates to be in the region of five times higher too? So let’s round up the UK murder statistics to 700, times that by five to take into account the population difference should give an expected murder rate of around 3,500 a year. In 2009 US murders stood at 16,799. That’s nearly five times what you would expect in a like for like comparison. The murder rates where guns are used as the weapon are even more staggering. 60 in the UK, times that by five would give an expected figure for the US of 300. In fact the gun murder statistics are around 11,500 in the US. That’s a staggering 38 times the rate of murders involving firearms in the UK.

So what causes such a staggering difference? The availability of guns, it’s as simple as that.

And that’s why we shouldn’t routinely arm the Police. Tragedies will happen, and will continue to happen. But, as others have suggested, routinely arming the Police will only escalate the situation.

Regards,

kev35

IMO arming every Police person would be a retrograde step

IMO arming every Police person would be a retrograde step.

It is something the Police Federation, Home Office and Parliament have to review if it thought necessary.

If they armed every Police person the ‘crazies’ would then arm themselves even more heavily and it would become like something out of movies e.g. Judge Dredd, Dredd 3D.

The tragedy in Manchester leaves me speechless as the Daily Telegraph shows massive ‘wanted’ displays in the City of Manchester with the picture of the ‘Cyclops’ before the tragedy.

How he managed to stay under cover is amazing but he must be the most hated man in the UK just now.

Quote from J Boyle ‘The unarmed police seems to give UK residents a feeling of superiority over other nations.’

It’s not the police, we’re British…..that’s why we feel superior! :diablo:

I recently saw on TV an English guy with 10 kids who lives off the dole.
But I know better than to assume that’s typical. 😉 :rolleyes:
Really Jim, you do love to perpetuate American stereotypes.
Here’s a hint, The Simpsons is not a documentary. 🙂

Most gun-owning Americans aren’t ghetto gang bangers or anti-government nutjobs. I live in the country. Several neighbors are hunters. Another, a dentist, has a shotgun to stop vermin from eating the egg-laying chickens he keeps for charity.

As always it comes down to: “How mamy liberties do you want to take away from law abiding people because there are crooks and nuts out there?”
I’ve used this comparison in the past…A UN report said the UK has a serious problem with youth drinking…among the worst in Europe. So why not raise the legal drinking age to 21? That would end a lot of youth drinking.
So now are you against draconian measures to solve a problem that affects a relative few?

Moggy ascended his superiority soapbax and trotted out low murder rates to indicate that armed police aren’t needed.
But, as usual, he neglected to read the rest of my post where I clearly indicate that while things may be rosey now, they probably won’t always be that way.
I said was it’s a discussion worth having as opposed to pretending the UK is still a small villiage from some old film where everyone is honest, brave and trusting.
No one locks their doors and there is no crime.
If that place ever really existed, it certainly doesn’t today.

And despite the lack of guns, 550 people were still murdered in the UK.
That shows, that even with few guns, bad stuff is still going to happen.
In the end, people kill people.

John. Your now in MY playground:)
There are many families here who have several kids, and the father is out of work, and claims the dole, watch your TV, there are some who realy do have 10 kids, and recently one who has 15!!

“I love to perpetuate American stereotypes,” I think you have done that job yourselves, especialy when it comes to Guns and Firearms, if this is NOT the case, then why do you vividly, defend your 2nd amendment?.Are you saying this is not stereotyping yourselves?.And you just HAVE to have a weapon in the house at all times?.
Example, American Guns on TV, YOUR Country not ours, a chap spends $60.000 to have a gun made, “so what”, you may say, well, he wanted a 50Cal, for hunting, yep, fair enough, what animal was he hunting, DEER, and MOOSE. you are X Military, and will know that the Weatherby 460 Magnum with hollow point, is a favourite projectile that will take an Elephant out with a single shot. Can’t honestly say I have seen a Deer or Moose that big!! so why the need?.
Try shortning the barrel if any shotgun in this Country to less than 24″ and you will be up to your neck in the proverbial quicker than you can blink an eye.I could quote more, but I guess you get the message.
I concede to one point of yours, and fully agree that drinking beer, spirits etc should, I.M.H.O. be the same as yours 21yrs of age.
I think that Pro Rata, ie sizes of our different Countries, Moggy is quite right, but John, Oh, John, you forgot to mention the figures of deaths by firearms in your Country, Go sit on the naughty step.;)
“The Simpsons are not a documentary” Oh, I forgot, Bart, changed his name to OBAHMA, :p
Jim.
Lincoln .7

Arm the Police? Definately not. Most Police officers don’t want it either. An armed officer will be no more a deterrent to a determined criminal, or a ‘category A’ nutcase.

Certain other countries, have both armed Police, AND capital punishment, neither work. In these countries, their serious crime levels are higher than ours, in certain cases, significantly higher.

Quote from J Boyle ‘The unarmed police seems to give UK residents a feeling of superiority over other nations.’

Well, I’m not sure that, that statement is totally fair. Like the great majority of us in the UK, I am very proud of our Police force, and of what it achieves within the concept of policing by mutual consent. I’m not sure that it makes us feel superior to other countries. It would probably be more accurate to say, that yes, we are fortunate to have the Police force we do, working the way it does.

I am hoping this one-eyed monster commits suicide in custody. With the help of the Police of course.
I doubt if there is one other person on this planet which wishes his survival.

So to sum up

The murder rate in the UK is falling without a routinely armed police force, but bad things are happening in the world so it would be a good idea to arm the police (who don’t want it) before things get any worse?

Fair enough, it’s a point of view I guess.

Moggy