Armed Police - Yes or No

[Tackle]

6 hours ago, clumpyedge said:

 

 

I have seen them used...

 

They are used in mainland UK arn't they? pretty much every police documentary going shows armed units having them in their kit? or am i just being naive?

All units have them, to be qualified to use one is different from "normal" firearms qualifications, as they perform & react differently to normal rounds.

the rounds themselves are assembled by the officers responsible for them, & they use the old fashioned Black Powder as a propellant, this gives a much bigger flash & more smoke, all designed to intimidate those its being used against.

BUT to the best of my (& my co19 mate), they've never been fired against crowds on the uk mainland, mainly because no senior officer has been prepared to authorise their use, & take responsibility if a round bounces up in to someone's head, usually killing them.

but you might have seen the guns used to deploy c's/tear gas type canisters to disperse crowds, different kettle of fish completely.

[Lozart]

2 minutes ago, Tackle said:

All units have them, to be qualified to use one is different from "normal" firearms qualifications, as they perform & react to normal rounds.

the rounds themselves are assembled by the officers responsible for them, & they use the old fashioned Black Powder as a propellant, this gives a much bigger flash & more smoke, all designed to intimidate those its being used against.

BUT to the best of my (& my co19 mate), they've never been fired against crowds on the uk mainland, mainly because no senior officer has been prepared to authorise their use, & take responsibility if a round bounces up in to someone's head, usually killing them.

but you might have seen the guns used to deploy c's/tear gas type canisters to disperse crowds, different kettle of fish completely.

 

I remember the old days of baton rounds be used in NI and the amount of serious injuries and deaths they caused! Mostly through being used incorrectly I might add (fired too close mostly).

[steakandpotato]

8 hours ago, AshOnSnow said:

I think there needs to be far more armed police units in general, and much better organised, but as far as arming all officers as standard, I would say no.

 

Certain things need to change though. It was good thinking for the BTP officers to have suppressors as standard, but I can’t imagine an LMT Defender with a 14.5” barrel, plus a suppressor on the end, can be that maneouvreable inside a packed train. Have seen HK417s in town and I don’t like the idea of behind whoever is shot at with one of those.

 

Also there doesn’t seem to be any consistency and a lot of red tape - saw footage of an armed response unit be called and was 30 minutes away. There by chance happened to be another ARV drive past and stop, but they weren’t the specific unit authorised for that specific call because of something to do with some ammunition they were carrying which was softpoint instead of FMJ or something like that, so they just had to drive on and leave the regular officers on their own for half an hour waiting. It’s the little things like that that make me scream “WHY?! JUST CUT THE S***!”

My mum went on a shooting range, changed from “guns are scary” to “look at me!” peppering the backstop with an MP5 on full auto

 

Where did you get to fire a MP5 full auto?

[AshOnSnow]

55 minutes ago, steakandpotato said:

 

Where did you get to fire a MP5 full auto?

Spent 6 years living abroad. Had to give up the shooting when we came back to the UK unfortunately.

[proffrink]

I also lived abroad for ~5 years and shot a few things. It was fun but I don't miss it hugely. I think we were around the same place @AshOnSnow and hopefully you'll agree that there are certainly far more positives in coming back than staying there for too long

 

Guns are mechanically super interesting, but people make mistakes (even well trained ones). I don't believe due process can be had (no matter how well intentioned an office might be) in a split second decision to draw a gun and that's why I prefer that our police have to call them in. Frankly our crime rates are still extremely low by most metrics, and whilst I appreciate that a binary decision like 'arm the police' is something tangible that everyone can have a clear-cut opinion on, the real debate is to be made in that grey area of litigation, reformation of offenders, sentencing guidelines, jurisdictional bias etc. These things don't usually get their own forum threads because they're dull and require an nuanced essay just to get your opinion out on.

[Tommikka]

9 hours ago, AshOnSnow said:

I think there needs to be far more armed police units in general, and much better organised, but as far as arming all officers as standard, I would say no.

 

Certain things need to change though. It was good thinking for the BTP officers to have suppressors as standard, but I can’t imagine an LMT Defender with a 14.5” barrel, plus a suppressor on the end, can be that maneouvreable inside a packed train. Have seen HK417s in town and I don’t like the idea of behind whoever is shot at with one of those.

 

Also there doesn’t seem to be any consistency and a lot of red tape - saw footage of an armed response unit be called and was 30 minutes away. There by chance happened to be another ARV drive past and stop, but they weren’t the specific unit authorised for that specific call because of something to do with some ammunition they were carrying which was softpoint instead of FMJ or something like that, so they just had to drive on and leave the regular officers on their own for half an hour waiting. It’s the little things like that that make me scream “WHY?! JUST CUT THE S***!”

My mum went on a shooting range, changed from “guns are scary” to “look at me!” peppering the backstop with an MP5 on full auto

There is a difference in performance in soft point and full metal jacket, and 

It doubt it was a matter of not cutting the shit and going in first

There was something not right for the situation. I expect the wrong ARV that was second on scene, or ignoring the call were not needed right now by the first normal bobbies and it was possible to wait that half an hour with the situation contained  

It could be that the ARVs our and about have x standard ARV equipment,  but the situation needed y ARV equipment, or a qualified & experienced negotiator etc 

It it was an absolute deal with it now situation then everyone available would have been heading directly to the scene 

 

In the US the police are trained to go out with number one priority stay alive, better to Tib judged then carried in a coffin. One more dead criminal is one less to deal with, and if you make a mistake then at least you came home alive.  Whereas in the UK it’s primarily to calm the situation, avoid escalating further and deal with it in court bringing criminals to justice

[clumpyedge]

Just thinking out loud and not knowing a hell of a lot about them but how would simtac round fair as an alternative to conventional "less than lethal rounds" could they be used to distract rather than incapacitate?

[clumpyedge]

To be honest like I say I was thinking out loud, not sure what capacity I was thinking they would use them from small scale to large scale but not knowing much about them I don't know in what aspect if any they would become useful other than training like they are used for now?

I know this is the daily fail but I actually saw the incident somewhere else before on the mail website.... a raise in knife and gun crime does make me think if officers don't want to be armed with firearms they should at least all carry tasers, which I believe currently not everyone is?

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5626907/Police-officer-thought-going-DIE-estate-agent-stabbed-him.html

[AshOnSnow]

13 hours ago, proffrink said:

I also lived abroad for ~5 years and shot a few things. It was fun but I don't miss it hugely. I think we were around the same place @AshOnSnow and hopefully you'll agree that there are certainly far more positives in coming back than staying there for too long

 

Oh definitely. Towards the end, it was definitely becoming morally difficult to stay there with everything that was going on behind the scenes, not shooting holes in targets with pistols is a small price to pay for being back home.

 

12 hours ago, Tommikka said:

There is a difference in performance in soft point and full metal jacket, and 

It doubt it was a matter of not cutting the shit and going in first

There was something not right for the situation. I expect the wrong ARV that was second on scene, or ignoring the call were not needed right now by the first normal bobbies and it was possible to wait that half an hour with the situation contained  

It could be that the ARVs our and about have x standard ARV equipment,  but the situation needed y ARV equipment, or a qualified & experienced negotiator etc 

It it was an absolute deal with it now situation then everyone available would have been heading directly to the scene 

 

In the US the police are trained to go out with number one priority stay alive, better to Tib judged then carried in a coffin. One more dead criminal is one less to deal with, and if you make a mistake then at least you came home alive.  Whereas in the UK it’s primarily to calm the situation, avoid escalating further and deal with it in court bringing criminals to justice

 

It was to put a headshot in a muntjac fawn at 2am whose legs had been crushed by an HGV. I’m no ballistics expert, but I’m pretty sure any 5.56 would be more than sufficient. IMO, not only did it leave an animal suffering longer than it had to, but it also stopped 2 other units from being able to go out and carry on with their job. It’s just an example of red tape getting in the way of being practical, especially with what is effectively a very simple thing to deal with.

[Tommikka]

30 minutes ago, AshOnSnow said:

 

.

 

 

It was to put a headshot in a muntjac fawn at 2am whose legs had been crushed by an HGV. I’m no ballistics expert, but I’m pretty sure any 5.56 would be more than sufficient. IMO, not only did it leave an animal suffering longer than it had to, but it also stopped 2 other units from being able to go out and carry on with their job. It’s just an example of red tape getting in the way of being practical, especially with what is effectively a very simple thing to deal with.

I can actually answer this one.

Any 5.56 would definatley not be sufficient 

 

I used to work with a guy who was the areas official go to guy for injured deer etc, he also worked on Stings estate

He did the majority of his shooting with a camera but also conducted deer management and was on call to the police.  Therefore he securely carried a rifle in his car.

Whenever I had to go to offices up in the West Midlands if I let him know where & when I was going he would try and get me redirected to a shop for collecting ammunition and reloading parts.  He used a vast series of target and hunting ammunition which was often classified in the opposite way to his actual use.

Certain items could only be collected in person by him with all his paperwork, others could be collected by anyone and may or may not have needed me to have his paperwork and ID

 

Any firearms officer may not know the correct method & point of aim, thus the wrong officer may be prohibited from firing the shot unless absolutely necessary at that moment.

The wrong ammunition (say standard fmj) could even go straight through the brain and leave a live muntjac now with crushed legs and a hole in its head, or say the wrong soft point may spin, shatter etc and the head explode

A muntjac with an exploding head is going to be out of its misery - but what force is going to blow the head off bambi with any passers by, let alone a tv crew ?)

 

Those units being prevented from doing their job were doing their job. Either that force / area don’t have an alternative with the vets or civilian deer management etc, or there wasn’t an out of hours / 2am service in place or available in a timely manner

The animal was suffering, that’s nature and if no one had got to it or noticed then it would have died in pain over hours on the side of the road or crawled away to die in pain over hours - and be Fox food

The right person with the right ammunition will have been there as soon as they could, and if another incident took priority they would have been dealing with that in priority against an injured animal 

[AshOnSnow]

1 hour ago, Tommikka said:

I can actually answer this one.

Any 5.56 would definatley not be sufficient 

 

I used to work with a guy who was the areas official go to guy for injured deer etc, he also worked on Stings estate

He did the majority of his shooting with a camera but also conducted deer management and was on call to the police.  Therefore he securely carried a rifle in his car.

Whenever I had to go to offices up in the West Midlands if I let him know where & when I was going he would try and get me redirected to a shop for collecting ammunition and reloading parts.  He used a vast series of target and hunting ammunition which was often classified in the opposite way to his actual use.

Certain items could only be collected in person by him with all his paperwork, others could be collected by anyone and may or may not have needed me to have his paperwork and ID

 

Any firearms officer may not know the correct method & point of aim, thus the wrong officer may be prohibited from firing the shot unless absolutely necessary at that moment.

The wrong ammunition (say standard fmj) could even go straight through the brain and leave a live muntjac now with crushed legs and a hole in its head, or say the wrong soft point may spin, shatter etc and the head explode

A muntjac with an exploding head is going to be out of its misery - but what force is going to blow the head off bambi with any passers by, let alone a tv crew ?)

 

Those units being prevented from doing their job were doing their job. Either that force / area don’t have an alternative with the vets or civilian deer management etc, or there wasn’t an out of hours / 2am service in place or available in a timely manner

The animal was suffering, that’s nature and if no one had got to it or noticed then it would have died in pain over hours on the side of the road or crawled away to die in pain over hours - and be Fox food

The right person with the right ammunition will have been there as soon as they could, and if another incident took priority they would have been dealing with that in priority against an injured animal 

Well in that case it’s something one would think they would all carry the right ammunition for and training as standard - from what they said in an interview, 99% of when they actually fire their weapons are animal dispatch, sometimes 2 or 3 times a shift, usually at night when the officials who normally deal with it are off hours. Yet again, it’s just a matter of being more organised and thinking ahead.

 

On another note though, I’m in London at the moment and just saw that the BTP guys have changed the barrels on their LMT Defenders for 10.5”s, and swapped  their optics from EOTech with fts magnifier to what look like ACOG with a 45 degree offset reflex. Not sure why they wouldn’t go with the Acog with RMR, but I’m guessing it was a budget thing with what they already have.

 

Oh gear, how I love thee

[Tommikka]

1 minute ago, AshOnSnow said:

Well in that case it’s something one would think they would all carry the right ammunition for and training as standard - from what they said in an interview, 99% of when they actually fire their weapons are animal dispatch, sometimes 2 or 3 times a shift, usually at night when the officials who normally deal with it are off hours. Yet again, it’s just a matter of being more organised and thinking ahead.

 

On another note though, I’m in London at the moment and just saw that the BTP guys have changed the barrels on their LMT Defenders for 10.5”s, and swapped  their optics from EOTech with fts magnifier to what look like ACOG with a 45 degree offset reflex. Not sure why they wouldn’t go with the Acog with RMR, but I’m guessing it was a budget thing with what they already have.

 

Oh gear, how I love thee

What if each crew carries 10 rounds of muntjac killer and this is the 11th of the night

[AshOnSnow]

4 hours ago, Tommikka said:

What if each crew carries 10 rounds of muntjac killer and this is the 11th of the night

Then they’ve saved time and money not waiting an hour for each one previously.

[MZKaleem]

On 4/18/2018 at 2:46 PM, AshOnSnow said:

Certain things need to change though. It was good thinking for the BTP officers to have suppressors as standard, but I can’t imagine an LMT Defender with a 14.5” barrel, plus a suppressor on the end, can be that maneouvreable inside a packed train. Have seen HK417s in town and I don’t like the idea of behind whoever is shot at with one of those.

 

I have seen BTP Firearms in action first-hand in an underground train, and they seem to be ok with the suppressors inside. The 417s are apparently very good at punching through train walls and windows. A couple of months ago when I last saw them, they were still using their Leupold Mk4 CQTs, but I wouldn't put it past BTP to be grabbing lots of new kit.

[Comicbook hero]

On ‎16‎/‎04‎/‎2018 at 15:13, Tackle said:

 

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