Is it time to arm the police?

[TeePee]

With reports that two Transport Police officers heroically attempted to stop last night's attack, armed with nothing but batons, is it time to adjust public policy toward arming (and training) all officers? Would this improve the safety of the public?

I would say cautiously, and with proper training, an unequivocal Yes. Obviously last night is but one example, and there were and are many armed officers in London. Reports are that a mere eight minutes elapsed from the beginning of this attack to it's termination by said officers, which is a spectacular response. But lives may have been saved were the BTP officers able to end it sooner. Similarly PC Keith Palmer was unarmed when he attempted to stop the Westminster Bridge attacker, who was then shot by an armed officer. It's time to provide the British police with the tools they need to do their job.

[spacein_vader]

The police are regularly surveyed by their union on this, and always vote emphatically against being armed. They believe it causes escalation where it may not otherwise concur.

Obviously recent events may change that but the IRA never changed their minds despite being better armed and funded.

[GoNz0]

I say yes.

[Ferral]

I would certainly say yes

If the first officers to respond on the scene were armed there could well have been less casualties, times are changing as are terrorist and violent crimes

[Flibb]

Police Federation had asked for wider deployment of taser, so that any officer wanting to carry one would be trained and equipped. New versions have two shots. Maybe more wide spread taser deployment (possibly even optional off duty) should be considered. Northern Ireland does have more armed officers, and they do carry (or at least did) when off duty.

Gut feeling on this is not to arm all Police, but maybe deploy more military personnel alongside the Police in specific armed roles, the Met already have some attached. The problem with arming all the Police is that shooting a pistol takes a lot of practice and a fair amount of aptitude, rather amazed that only one civilian was hit in London by the Police. That's not being disparaging to the officers, its got to be a nightmare situation trying to shoot somebody when there are innocent people around.

[Marenghi]

No. I don't care how chaotic the situation last night was, 3 scumbags, 50 shots fired and 1 civilian dead by police bullets. That is not acceptable. Tasers are a much more reasonable upgrade on force

[Flibb]

No. I don't care how chaotic the situation last night was, 3 scumbags, 50 shots fired and 1 civilian dead by police bullets. That is not acceptable. Tasers are a much more reasonable upgrade on force

Nobody was killed by the Police, one person is in hospital with gunshot wounds. You have to get close to use a taser, and they could set off a bomb, but the coppers that tackled these people with batons would have stood a better chance.

50 shots is very few considering that 8 firearms officers were shooting at multiple targets.

[Tumble]

Every other country in the world does. I say we should too. These idiots will stop at nothing to cause misery by blowing themselves up or running vehicles into people, but I'd bet they'd stop on the end of an armed officer's rifle.

[ik9000]

French police are armed. It didn't stop charlie hebdo massacre nor the bin lorry in Nice(or wherever it was). German police are armed, it didn't stop the lorry ploughing into the Christmas market. Indian police are armed, it didn't prevent the mumbai rail attack. Tunisian police are armed, they still had their beach and hotels stormed. Arming police won't suddenly prevent these events.

[TeePee]

French police are armed. It didn't stop charlie hebdo massacre nor the bin lorry in Nice(or wherever it was). German police are armed, it didn't stop the lorry ploughing into the Christmas market. Indian police are armed, it didn't prevent the mumbai rail attack. Tunisian police are armed, they still had their beach and hotels stormed. Arming police won't suddenly prevent these events.

No, but all of these events were eventually ended by armed police. In at least these two attacks, arming all police may have ended them sooner. Armed citizens reduce crime too, but that will never happen in the UK.

[ik9000]

One of the injured policemen was off duty. Arming on duty officers would have made no difference in that case.

[Spreadie]

No. Most people don't need to see armed police officers to be deterred from committing serious crime - I don't doubt that, in certain situations, armed police could be on the scene much sooner and perhaps save a life. However, I'm also certain that we'll see an increase in accidental police shootings.

Besides, they're still human beings - being given a gun doesn't suddenly bestow them with jedi reflexes or psychic foresight - an nutter intent on mayhem could still conceivably surprise and kill/incapacitate the copper outside the doors of parliament, but the end result means the nutter now has access to a gun instead of a bag of kitchen knives.

[Saracen]

No.

Law of unintended consequences => arming officers would likely involve many more armed criminals (as distinct from terrorists) with the distinct possibility not only of lots more cops getting shot, but lots more civilians getting caught in crossfire.

Besides, as I understand it, the budget has been there for increased firearms officers for a couple of years, but police are having great trouble actually recriiting those that are both willing and suitable. Do we want to arm all police if that involves significant drops on both training and psychomettic assessment / testing?

At least part of the reason it's hard to recruit is that these cops go out on duty every day knowing they MIGHT have to use their weapons and if they do, very possibly kill someone, as per yesterday, and they are going to have to face the rest of their lives knowing they took someone's live and no matter how good the reason and justified the shoot, that is a weight to bear.

And on top of that, if the discharge their weapon, let alone kill someone, they're going to face a year or two of potenyually career-ending enquiries, their lives and by implication their families lives are going to face upheaval, and they'll likely be a risk of a court trial and a manslaughter or efen murder conviction because they tried to do their jobs and some liberally-minded second-guessers that have never faced that situation are going to stand in judgement, after the fact.

We can't go without that post-shoot enquiry or we risk a bunch of extra-judicial killings, but if we have it, even the best officers get 2 years of upheaval for doing their jobs exactly and precisely as instructed.

Never mind recruiting more, I'm surprised we can get as many as we already have, given how they get treated.

One more thing. A couple of officers of my acquaintance have told me they'd leave the police entirely rather than face that every day, if they were required to be armed.

The immefiate aftermath of an incident(s) like this is not, IMHO, the time to be making policy changes or we risk a knee-jerk reaction we will regret later.

[wazzickle]

Well I came into this thread a little heated and thinking 'yeah, you know, maybe it is' but I was put right by all your logic and sensibility. Thanks guys.

[badass]

Even the Police in general don't support them all being armed with guns. Getting to be an armed Police officer takes years and can be withdrawn for a single mistake. And with good reason.

Still, after any atrocious attack like this, there is always the kneejerk reaction......

[b0redom]

Armed citizens reduce crime too, but that will never happen in the UK.

I was waiting for someone to say that. Of course if there were multiple armed civilians around London Bridge, they may have stopped the losers armed with knives.

If the UK had the same gun laws as in the US though, those same losers would likely have attacked with automatic weapons rather than knives and the end result would have been way more carnage and death.

Remember that most of the people killed were killed out of the blue with no warning. No amount of defensive weaponry would have stopped that.