Poll: Should British Police be armed?
- Thread starter mortalsatsuma
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And what, you think that they won't do it with knives? If anything, knives are a far worse thing to give a person. Knives don't have serial numbers imprinted onto every last important part (inculding the bullets). Knives aren't registered to the weilder, which allows said parts to be traced to them. Knives don't cost an arm and a leg to keep maintained and armed. And knives aren't loud, so using one rarely draws attention.InfiniteSingularity said:
Anyways, you're assuming that every last officer of the law is evil, and that could not be farther from the truth. Most police have never even used their weapon except at the firing range, and most will never have to use in the real world. The whole purpose of having it there is to ensure that they are able to defend themselves and the people they are sworn to protect should the need arise. It's a defensive weapon only.
Besides, have you seen the amount of paperwork and scrutiny that an officer has to go through if they so much as pull that gun out of its holster, let alone fire it? The effort one would need to try and circumvent it as "bad cop" is far beyond the limits of most humans' willingness to do so.
Little thing called escalation, arming the police will just cause the criminals to arm themselves better, and so on so forth. Maybe giving them all tazers would be good though, would help deal with situations where a little bit of range is needed.
Also, people shouldn't be afraid of their government, arming the police would just cause more fear.
Also, people shouldn't be afraid of their government, arming the police would just cause more fear.
As a Special Police officer, I reckon I've got some good insight for ya theremortalsatsuma said:
Firstly, they ARE armed. The difference is, that for the majority of police, their weapons are more sophisticated, and don't kill the criminal. Now, I have a hard time seeing why anyone considers this a bad thing?
Simply put, a situation where an officer kills anyone, criminal or not, puts the police in a position where they have just committed a major crime. Although police have leniency and suchlike, they do not have "licenses to kill", and that, again is a good thing. The police need to be answerable to the law, otherwise we have created a publicly well funded criminal gang. That would be bad. The police are human too, and there will always be those who abuse power.
A lot of the people who want the police in this country to be armed, have not thought about it very well. It DOESN'T work in any other country. In fact we have the finest force in the world, something that we are continuously praised for, while many countries request our officers to help train theirs, and offer instant promotions for transfers within the commonwealth.
There are situations where armed officers ARE needed, and they exist. Go to Westminster, and you will see officers armed with state of the art semi automatic assault rifles, and lots of them. Similarly, the Met has many different units that are equipped to deal in deadly force. We have sharpshooters, we have riflemen. They can deal with extreme situations, and are specifically trained to do so. We do NOT need to average bobby on the beat to have a gun, and it's ridiculous to think that we do.
There are other issues with it, namely money (insurance costs, lawsuits and equipment costs would rise dramatically), safety issues (not only are guns clearly dangerous, but it makes an officer into a deadly threat, and criminals will react to them in kind), and frankly, there is the fact that it isn't necessary.
To all of those who believe we do, you have to question why you think that. Should all criminals be dealt with deadly justice? Should a man be shot for running a red light? Does a small town drug dealer deserve to be permanently paralysed for selling weed? These are all true examples of what has happened with guns.
Frankly, the idea that the British should take any sort of note from American police is ridiculous. While America excels at many things, it's police force is not one of them. The fitness and training that our force does is incredible, and second to none. If those advocating armed police are worried about the force being soft, or ineffective, there is a MUCH better way to change that, which is change your attitudes towards the police. Where America DOES excel is in it's treatment of the police by everyday people. In America many people are raised to respect and trust the police. In this country, they are not. Treat them with the same respect that our soldiers get, stop reading the filth and lies that are our countries shame (newspapers), and spread this mentality around. Police aren't there to be dicks, or to get off on some sort of power trip. They are there to deal with criminals, and criminals alone.
The training is intensive, and I think you have your information slightly wrong on the British police.Zantos said:
Firstly, it's near impossible to get a job with the police. The majority now have, or are trained to graduate level. Most new police officers are ex army. Secondly, depending on where you live (different situation and location require different training), your training lasts for on average 6 months, with two years of extra courses while you are also gaining on the job experience. You are on probation for these years. All police are trained to deal with firearms, and most to use them (again, depending on the area).
Of those countries you've mentioned, we regularly deploy our instructors over there to help them train. Our force is famous for a reason, and that is why it enjoys such a success rate. The newspapers rarely report this, as they sell more issues saying the contrary. I do however appreciate that this country has very little respect for anything, and it's a massive shame.
I'm an Englishman, and as soon as the government even hinted at arming our police, I'd go on a protest march.
Crime, gun crime in particular, simply isn't an issue in Britain; to arm the police would mean the gangs would arm themselves too. It would just escalate a situation that is relatively mild anyways. Most murders in Britain are knife related, and any gun-related incident is swiftly responded with a squad full of police armed with MP5's.
Crime, gun crime in particular, simply isn't an issue in Britain; to arm the police would mean the gangs would arm themselves too. It would just escalate a situation that is relatively mild anyways. Most murders in Britain are knife related, and any gun-related incident is swiftly responded with a squad full of police armed with MP5's.
Yeah, the problem with this topic is is so bloody impossible to find unbiased information, if any at all, that I had to flip a coin on whether or not it was even worth me posting anything.Verlander said:
As much as those countries are used as examples of armed police and low crime rates, I couldn't actually find anything that linked the two things, there are plenty of arguments that suggest the national attitude would give them a low crime rate anyway.
Sorry if my post was rather misinformed, as I said coin toss on if it was even worth posting. Damn tails never fails rule.
I say yes, and this is because I have grown up in NYC, where it isn't uncommon to find 6-man squads armed with assault rifles and sniffer dogs in subway stations now, and where I don't recall a single shooting incident involving them. They're a very effective deterrent. Even the regular police armed with pistols and shotguns, they're effectively trained on gun usage. Of course you're going to have a cop that screws up in the heat of the moment, but Britain already has those too.
The important thing to note is that even though America has more gun violence, because guns are legal weapons and people simply use them a lot more, Britain has a higher level of physical assaults and an absurdly higher level of muggings. Muggers are frightened about cops with guns. Maybe Britain's city streets can be safer by arming street cops with pistols, and I'm certain that they can be trained en masse in proper firearm protocol. I don't see the British police having the same problems that some American police had when people didn't trust cops with guns.
The only problem I can see is a legitimate threat, really, and that's the amount of power being given to a police force. But I think that Britain has a crime problem it's keeping on the low, by not talking about it, and that it should be addressed.
The important thing to note is that even though America has more gun violence, because guns are legal weapons and people simply use them a lot more, Britain has a higher level of physical assaults and an absurdly higher level of muggings. Muggers are frightened about cops with guns. Maybe Britain's city streets can be safer by arming street cops with pistols, and I'm certain that they can be trained en masse in proper firearm protocol. I don't see the British police having the same problems that some American police had when people didn't trust cops with guns.
The only problem I can see is a legitimate threat, really, and that's the amount of power being given to a police force. But I think that Britain has a crime problem it's keeping on the low, by not talking about it, and that it should be addressed.
I think that's how they do it. So if there is an armed robbery the police can fight back. But most of the time it means people aren't shot and killed for petty theft.Zarkov said:
