Lol, Less lethal ?, obviously you've never seen baton rounds in use, they are highly unstable & uncontrollable, & always potentially lethal, hence why no uk police force has deployed them on the mainland.
on the plus side, the spent rounds make a great chucking/chew toy for big dogs, my old dogs used to love them & they're pretty much indestructible
Baton guns are generally deployed as a less lethal option on most firearms deployments and are regularly used to ‘brake a chain of events’ i:e stopping some twat getting shot with a conventional weapon.
The baton round was changed from the solid round to one with an air pocket on the tip about 10 years ago to stop rebounds.
Baton Guns in public order situations are a different kettle of fish. But they were deployed in the London riots as roaming teams but were never fired.
Actualy there are less. Considerably less. The Government cut the figures quite a few years ago (my local Force went from a combined team of ARVOs / SFOs of about 90 to 45) and have only started to increase them recently after the recent atrocities. The number now, with the recent increase is still way below the 2010 numbers.
Outside of the major forces you would be surprised at the small number of armed officers available for deployment.
And here in lies the issue. Response times for armed support. 5 minutes is a life time when it’s all going off and armed support is called. In most counties 15 minutes would be a good armed response time. So the easiest answer is Taser.
Taser is not the be all and end all that people would have you believe though. It’s effective range is about 12 feet (the manufacturer states 21 feet but that’s not realistic.) And at this distance you don’t get a second chance.
Thick clothing can defeat the probes thereby reducing its effectiveness and you need an accurate hit and spread on the body for it to work at full effect, not easy at a moving target when your under pressure.
However, it is easier and safer to arm officers with Taser rather than conventional firearms. So, all armed officers in my area carry Taser with additional unarmed officers able to carry it as well. It has its place but should never be regarded as the best bit of kit to deal with a knife wielding subject.
At Borough Market the ARVO officer fired and hit the knife wielding terrorist numerous times with a rifle round before he finally hit the ground. Had that been a Taser only operator he would have been dead.
Had the BTP officers who first intervened (one of whom was seriously stabbed) been armed there is little doubt that the whole attack would have been ended far quicker.
Officers in Germany, France, Sweden, Spain and PSNI carry firearms routinely without shooting people. Why people think British Police would be any different I don’t know.
CBH
