Armed Police - Yes or No

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Duff

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19641398

Found this article whilst researching a subject in another topic regarding firearms in the UK. I find it very interesting that we are one of the very few countries to have an "unarmed" police force. What are peoples thoughts on this? Do you think that arming the police would only make career criminals take up arms themselves? Would it increase illegal gun smuggling and therefore put more of the public at risk? Would more members of the public feel they need a firearm as some form of protection?

I'm expecting a broader and slightly more sensible opinion from good people such as yourselves who enjoy flinging plastic at each other with toy guns.

Let's discuss...

 
We already have the armed police with officers trained to use those firearms. I don't think we need to arm your average police officer.

Here's a scenario I saw a few years ago. There's a video too which I'll try and find.

Kid brings a replica firearm and is seen taking it out of his jacket at the mall. The armed police intercept him after he leaves. He quickly pulls it out of his jacket and drops it on the ground whilst guns are pointed at him.

Now, if this wasn't the armed police and just you're average patrolman do you think the same restraint would have applied? I think the kid would have just gotten himself shot. 

Edit: found it 



 
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My brother is one of the boys in blue, him and almost all his colleagues are very much against being armed.

Their ethos is here to help, not here to kill. I get the impression a good number of them would quit if told they had to carry guns on duty. Most of them don’t even want a tazer.

 
I have worked for the Police for the last decade and have asked this question to quite a few Coppers over the years and the answer was an almost universal and resounding NO, even from those that are or have been a Firearms Officer.

TASER is as "armed" as most regular Police Officer want to be .....

 
Agreed,  I don't think we need to or should arm every police officer or street officer. 

Most armed police I have spoken to also say they would prefer not to have to carry guns but unfortunately they are required to. 

but I see plenty of trained armed police in Brighton on nearly on a monthly / weekly basis now, either patrolling Brighton shopping mall or Brighton Station etc, a few times they have popped into our local firearms club too, one time when a muppet guest decided to take his rifle out if the boot of his car and walk it to gun club on his shoulder, luckily it was a vintage airrifle but the armed police certainly did not presume that, which was a big shock to the guy with the rifle, they used to train at our club too, not sure they do that now though I think they go somewhere else now.. 

I'm fine with seeing armed police patrolling the streets, but I can see why some people might be upset or worried or even frightened by it, a lot of people still think all firearms are illegal in the UK so seeing a gun concerns them even in the hands of police, unfortunately though with what's happening nowadays having armed police is becoming more and more visible and sometimrs needed and I feel its only a matter of time before we as a country we start seeing more and more armed police, and a ban on a lot more guns, but again gun bans mainly only affects the law abiding citizens not criminals as much. 

ATB Marc 

 
The prevalence of armed Police is obviously in response to the number of "terror" incidents, offences committed with either real or fake weapons and is of course naturally linked in to the UK Threat Level.

With the current state of social friction and witty political banter currently going on across the globe, I'd suggest we'll see more rather than less gun toting Police on the streets of the UK

Gentlemen, we live in Dangerous Days .....

 
I think that we have a reasonably well balanced system at present. The main issue at present, and a continuing problem, is the cuts to police numbers but that's another topic.

 
I really like the fact as a country we are in the minority of not arming all of our police. 

As has been said, police are there to help. There are extremely few occasions where a firearm helps. 

I do support more officers being trained and having tasers, but only if they want to have them in the first place. 

Our police force is trained to talk to people to calm them down and make them compliant. That is much better than threating/beating people into submission in the vast majority of cases in my eyes. 

What we need is more police, who are given the time to actually carry out police work, rather than endless paper work.

I could talk more about this, it's something I feel strongly about. But I fear I may ramble...

 
Are you asking if coppers should be armed with airsoft guns?

 
i'm firmly in the yes camp.

for a start in northern ireland the PSNI are all tooled up as a matter of course, it's really nothing of any note, and surprisingly incidents involving airsoft guns don't end in shootings (although i'm sure at some point someone's gonna go there)

secondly, the majority of arguments against an armed police force have this nasty habit of starting with examples based from american police forces, but we're not americans, we don't have a heavily armed populace, and we have accountability for when police do have to shoot someone.

finally, and probably the most important point is that as duff mentions we are one of the few that don't. now it might be used as an argument that for countries that do officers very rarely (if ever) use their firearms outside of training purposes. but if it's someone's job to protect the people then they should be capable of doing so, all arming them does is give them that next level of escalation for the rare occasion their normal go-to routines aren't going to cut it.

 
While I wouldn't necessarily like to to see a blanket arming of all officers, as some may not have skills/inteligence to be considered safe in that role.

(Yep, I realise my remark about intelligence may anger some, it comes from my experience with them, friends who are still serving, as well as members of various forces, & the truth is that some are more suited to certain roles than others, some I wouldn't trust to be a school crossing person ;)  )

but I do feel that there needs to be an increase in armed officers, & maybe (?) tazers issued to those who don't make the grade as fully fledged firearms officers.

case in point regards a friend of mine, my sons godfather, who's been in the met for more than 25 years, started as a police cadet in his teens, & for at least the first 10 years of his career he was vehemently against there being armed officers routinely patrolling the streets, BUT a few years of working as a TSG skipper & then undercover in a drugs squad has changed his opinion, so much so that he's now a senior skipper in CO19.

morale is we could all look at it through rosé tinted glasses, especially those of us old enough to remember the regular beat bobbies who everybody knew & who walked everywhere so you felt they were part of the community, but times have changed, the threat that the country faces in both criminal behaviour & terrorism has grown to epidemic proportions, & if stamping down on it means arming a lot more plod etc, then so be it.

sure there'll be mistakes, can't be avoided but this is a very clear case of the needs of the innocent majority overruling the wants of the scummy minority.

 
Not all police officers need guns but i would say all non armed police should at least have a taser each so crazy people with knifes cant stab them (i know they have vests though). A more sensible way to allow police to have better chances with armed criminals would be to have the same setup as now just with non armed police having a emergency pistol safe securely located and hidden in their vehicles. That way the average police officers could respond to shootings before armed police arrive if need be. The problem with that is the loads of training and costs of guns and gun safes plus installation and maintenance in the vehicles. I'd say for the most part police over here are on the right track they dont all need guns unless they wanna make pistols and conceal carry legal then that's a different story.

 
I have a friend who is currently training and has just been issued cactus spray (from what I can gather it's pepper spray in a liquid that allows it to go a bit further) but from what I can gather he has mixed feelings about arming police... but equipping them with tasers does seem to be becoming more common.

 
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I work in London, so when the latest attack happened at London Bridge, there were armed Police outside/surrounding area of the shard etc upto a few weeks after it. Obviously there are armed police doing patrols etc but I dont get over there too much anymore. I personally don't like seeing them armed. Infact, it scared me when I saw them because it bought realism to the whole terrorist attack thing.

A friend of mine is in the police, according to him, each time they even take out their baton they have to file a report on that as it's classed as a weapon; in which (he tells me) is their last resort, so pulling a gun could be after a baton perhaps but the paperwork might not be worth it... I dont know how true this is though. 

I would be in the NO camp. 

 
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Having played Airsoft with 2 serving and 1 ex copper, spoken to multiple armed cops and talking to a lot of your standard bobbies through my other pastime. I can almost 100% day they don’t want to be armed. There is too much paperwork. And if you do discharge your gun and shoot someone, you can/will go through criminal proceedings.

I am VERY anti scum, and I think that if your being a douche bag(cops only shoot if your not doing as your asked or you don’t drop the weapon) then you should be shot for being an arrogant twonk.

Dont like it, do as your feckin’ told and it wouldn’t have happened. 

This country is too soft, if your breaking the law, why should we treat you with the same treatment as a decent human being.

So take from that what you want. We don’t need armed cops, but if we shot more of the criminals, less people may wanna take up criminal activities.

 
Prisce said:
I am VERY anti scum, and I think that if your being a douche bag(cops only shoot if your not doing as your asked or you don’t drop the weapon) then you should be shot for being an arrogant twonk.

Dont like it, do as your feckin’ told and it wouldn’t have happened. 

This country is too soft, if your breaking the law, why should we treat you with the same treatment as a decent human being.
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DAMN RIGHT  :rolleyes:

 
Okay so to put it simply: I'm as close to being a serving officer as you can be w/o already being an officer (Don't want to go into details, involves a medical problem). As such, I've spoken to a lot of serving/ex officers (admittedly, mostly on how to pass the selection process, but also just as a chat) and have formulated my own opinions that probably mirror a lot of officers:

Does there need to be more armed police officers?

Nope. There is a system in place that works fairly well in regards to getting the correctly equipped officers to specific tasks. 

Does there need to be more armed response officers? (I'm aware there isn't a difference. It just helps me differentiate)

Yes. And this is why they recently opened applications to Armed Police ONLY applications last year - meaning you can bypass the entire standard process.

The problem is the scrutiny a police officer will come under for firing his firearm, especially if he hits and kills/maims the target. That isn't going to go away unfortunately, and as a result, the MPS will always be 'under-armed' as some people will say.

The idea that regular 'bobby-on-the-beat' officers should be armed is one that stops at exactly what it is. An idea. It will never and probably should never be seen into action.

However, in my opinion, more actual ARO's would be helpful, what with all the terrorist nonsense going on these past couple of years.

 
I’m against arming all police, but it’s down to character/personality traits of a lot of officers. When you hand someone a gun you’re handing them power. That’s where I think America goes wrong. I think you need to be the right type of person to be carrying one. 

Ive spoke to two armed officers before and they were some of the nicest, most down to earth people I’ve met. 

On the flip side.. ALL officers I’ve encountered without firearms have been absolute bellends of the highest magnitude and I wouldn’t let them tie their own shoelaces never mind give them a gun. 

 
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