Coppers with guns

[Rythmic]

People always draw a comparison with the states - they have armed police and huge gun related crimes. But try looking at Canada - armed police, and a level of gun crime about the same as us. 60% of US policemen who are shot, are shot with their own weapon.

Perhaps if the police force was allowed to spend it's money in it's own way we'd have a better system. Police atm have to employ people to enter and transfer data between computer systems, and policemen have to spend between 30 and 60% of their day doing paperwork. But whenever they ask for a new computer system, the goverment always tells them to spend it on more policemen instead (for comparison, the money they've asked for for years works out at about 4% more coppers).

[spikegifted]

Originally posted by Richie
Nothing to do with the fact there is a VASTLY greater population in these countries and the fact that (in the US anyways) guns are bought over the counter with your loaf of bread and pint of milk ??

Personally, I don't think the size of the population has anything to do with gun crime - it is the mentality that's really makes the difference. On the other hand, having guns freely available is definitely one of the many sources of the problem.

Originally posted by Gr44
we should tighten the level of checking on imports to help lower imported guns, this should raise the price, making them less publicly available.

That is exactly the point I was trying to make - use our money and resources to fix the problem at its source rather than waste the time and money at the problematic symptoms.

[wasabi]

I come from N Ireland originally and found it very weird for years having copper shere who don't have either guns or bulletproof vests. I just can't imaging how police in most innrer-city areas can really do teir jobs without guns to be honest.

[Jiff Lemon]

no.

If the police are armed, the likelyhood of criminals arming themselves increases.
I'm all for armed response units, and would like to see them shoot to kill, rather than to disarm/disable - Get the message across that if you go out armed, the chances of coming back are slim.

[andybasford]

Armed police is a slightly knee-jerk reaction to the recent rise in gun related crime. My thoughts are the better thing to do is equip police with more non-lethal alternatives eg Tasers etc...

[TeePee]

There is a huge problem with Tasers unfortunately, which is that their effects on people with heart conditions are unknown, and they would certainly be fatal if used on someone with a pacemaker. At the moment they are used in specific situations where firearms are also deployed, and where the alternative is to use them. Obviously a Taser is a preferable 'less-lethal' alternative to 9mm, but in the long term, if rank and file officers are issued with a weapon which is widely considered safe, it will be used in much more varied situations, including those where lethal force is not reasonable. If or when it happens to be used on someone who is susceptible, then there's a potential manslaughter/murder charge.

Funny story about an incident where a Taser was used in London. There's a siege situation, loads of police turn up, with firearms, baton guns, Tasers and Dogs. The man comes out of the house and starts charging police with a Samurai sword (in typical derranged nutter suicide by cop stylee). First to shoot is the officer with the baton gun, but unfortunately it misfires, so the officer with the taser steps up and shoots. (The Taser fires two darts, one of which has to hit the target, the other has to hit something, either the target or the ground). Meanwhile the dog handler has seen the baton gun misfire, and released the dog, and a second baton gun also fires, and the offender is hit with all three simultaneously. Now that's what I call reasonable force! The offender survived, and apparently said the taser was the most painful!

[andybasford]

It may be a problem but how many people do you know who have a pacemaker. It only becomes an issue if the police started using tasers indiscriminately (ie in situations where they wouldn't normally resort to using firearms) for example crowd control

[TeePee]

Thats exactly my point. While I wouldn't go so far to say crowd control, the average officer would probably consider a taser reasonable force to use against the average violent offender. Because it is 'Less-lethal' means it is more likely to be used, and the problem is it may be randomly lethal to certain people, making it's use unreasonable.

[jcoquillon]

Yes they definitely should, in this day and age it's criminal not to allow them a means of protection against armed law breakers. They could store the guns in the boot of the car but then they wouldn't have them when they needed them most. I do feel that acrrying sub machine guns and assault rifles around town is getting to be a bit excessive, a side arm of some sort would suffice with more serious firepower brought in whne required.

I live near an area of birstol called St Pauls and for several months the police have been patrolling with automatic weapons to cut down on drug dealing and gang disputes and it's been highly effective.

Carrying the heavier weapons is rather like a country owning nuclear tipped ICBMs, they're there as a threat rather than a real offensive weapon, only to be used if the situation really demands it and no other alternative exists.

The way our police have been trainned and have always been is to attempt to prevent injury and death as much as possible. If you get shot at it's because they feel you pose to great a risk to negotiate with or are posing great danger to everyone and chances are if you get shot, they will kill you as they feel you are a visible and very real threat and they aim for the centre of body mass to take you down with minimum risk of collateral casualties.

[Allen]

Yes. Arm all coppers, shoot-to-kill all robbers!

[Lowe]

Originally posted by Jiff Lemon
no.

If the police are armed, the likelyhood of criminals arming themselves increases.
I'm all for armed response units, and would like to see them shoot to kill, rather than to disarm/disable - Get the message across that if you go out armed, the chances of coming back are slim.

Depends where you live. Around here all the crims are already armed. Weekly people are being shot less than 10 miles from my house - I've even heard gunshots when driving around Birmingham. ARVs often don't get to the scene quickly enough unless it's a siege type situation.

I'm all for armed patrols on the beat in certain troublesome areas, though I think a complete rollout of firearms to every cop is a smidge extreme.

[psalliss]

i dont really agree that all police should be armed. i mean would you want to trust so trigger happy 19 year old fresh out of training with a glock or ak47. i think that ever shift should have say 20% of the officers, specially trained to carry guns and use them in every day work. that way all coppers would have armed backup which could be with them very quickly, if not already on route or in attendance if job requires it. at the very least they should have a few years experience under there belt

[Flibb]

I voted for not sure. In some areas more armed police are needed, but in others they arnt. But those that are armed need more training and need to spend a lot more time on the range once qualified. There were problems where armed Police were being used primarily as motorway and traffic, these ment that firearms took a back seat and training suffered, this was shown in a review of Northamptonshires armed response. The main reason for using MP5's over pistols is that pistols are extremly difficult to use, it takes a lot of training to use one accurately, where as a rifle is much simpler to use and control, they both use the same ammo.
Cheers
Flibb

[Saracen]

Armed police is certainly appropriate in some areas, and in some situations, but as a general pracitce nationwide, I'm against it. Armed officers are still relatively rare on the streets, and there are few enough of them that that are well-trained - yet innocent people have still been killed by mistake. If all officers were armed by default, it would put immense stress on the training facilities and I find it hard to believe that it could be done without standards dropping.

Also, at the moment, officers are assessed for their psychological suitability to carrying weapons - anyone with a gung-ho attitude, for instance, will not qualify. So if you arm all officers, that means either you drop standards to admit those that currently would not qualify, or you force those officers out of the police.

It would be interesting to know what rank and file police officers think though. I haven't discussed with with serving officers for some years, but certainly last time I did, the majority of those I asked were against. The logic seemed to be that most armed offenders are aware that when facing unarmed officers, they have the upper hand and are therefore less likely to actually use their firearms. Those officers, and this was years ago, felt safer NOT being armed.

Of course, the world has changed and whether the same officers would feel the same way now is anybody's guess - but it would be interesting to find out.

But as things stand - I vote "no" to armed officers by default. It might come to that ultimately (though I hope not) but at the moment - no.

[TeePee]

There is a situation used in firearms training in America, which is based on a true story. Reports of a domestic disturbance in a house, and two officers respond. They hear screaming in a bedroom, and investigate. On opening the door, they see a man on top of a woman, attacking her. One officer grabs the man, and starts dragging him off to arrest him. He fights back, and is able to grap the officers weapon and to shoot the other officer.
What the officers should have done, or so the training goes, is to have shot him as soon as they entered the room. Since he is attacking the woman, it is considered reasonable force.
Were the officers unarmed, then they would have no choice but to grab the man, and attempt an arrest, and there would be no weapon for him to grab.

On a technical note, the MP5 is a carbine and not a rifle. ARV's do also have .223 rifles in the boot, for the simple reason that the 9mm round used in the glock and MP5 is very low powered (2/3 of the manufacturers reccomended minimum), for a good reason and won't even penetrate a double glazed window.

[Flibb]

What the ARV's carry varies from force to force. The in the Met each vehicle has 3 crew, all have pistols and then 2 MP5's are carried in the boot. They also have SFO's and SO19, these are the ones used in seiges and actions where pre planning can be used.
Flibb