Guns for Police in the UK???

In light of the Police Officers killed in Manchester, discussions of all Police being trained to carry a firearm have been raised.

Who thinks all of our Police should carry a firearm or do we stick with the Armed Response Units?

My own opinion is that all Police should at least carry a taser gun, as giving Police actual hand guns will in no doubt cause the amount of black market guns to climb and the amount of gun crime will increase.

I think that this is a touchy subject for many people. The way I look it though, is that the statistics speak for themselves. Our police do not need to carry guns. ARU's are the most sensible solution.

If police carry guns, gun crime will sky rocket.

Sheuthem wrote: I think that this is a touchy subject for many people. The way I look it though, is that the statistics speak for themselves. Our police do not need to carry guns. ARU's are the most sensible solution.

If police carry guns, gun crime will sky rocket.

I completely agree, Giving police guns will make alot of people uneasy. People then may feel that they need to carry guns to protect themselves not from the police but from everyone else with a heightened sense of danger that would come from it.

My only thoughts for that, would be to equip the officers with a shotgun loaded with bean bag rounds, and a sack filled with lego's to prevent a criminals escape. Both of those, supply unimaginable pain, are inexpensive, will not kill, and are hilarious to watch.

On a serious note, ( Though I am partially completely serious about the above comment ) Officers in the UK don't really possess the need to carry guns. Guns are a form of power, one that is taken far too likely and used with far too less restraint. They cause more problems then they will solve, and the officers in the UK have done well without them.

Far be it from me to stick my nose in another’s countries business, but criminals to not obey the law. Hence… they are criminals. That being the fact; how can one in good conscience send someone out there to “protect” them without giving that person the tools to protect themselves?

Keep in mind that I come from a society where we, figuratively, are born holding a firearm. :blink:

I can't imagine it would actually happen at the moment, because of this:

Seraph Arel wrote: giving Police actual hand guns will in no doubt cause the amount of black market guns to climb and the amount of gun crime will increase.

I wouldn't want police to routinely carry guns. What if they lost their temper? Or misunderstood a situation?

I would perhaps agree that it might make sense for them to carry tasers though, although even then you do hear reports of police abusing them after losing their temper.

When you decide to join the police force, you have to accept that
a) lots of people really wont like you, and
b) you probably wont be carrying a gun or taser with which you can protect yourself

If this sort of shooting was happening every day, then perhaps my answer would be different. But there will always be one-offs...people will still shoot police occasionally even if they have guns. I'd actually be really surprised if more police didn't end up getting shot if they carried firearms.

I would be much happier if it stayed the way it is...and I would be really really surprised if it didn't...

Wescli Wardest wrote: criminals to not obey the law. Hence… they are criminals. That being the fact; how can one in good conscience send someone out there to “protect” them without giving that person the tools to protect themselves?

Well because there is the question of whether giving them those particular tools to protect themselves would actually put them (and others) in more danger...

I was searching for some statistics relating the number of “wrongful” shootings by U.S. police verses the numbers of officers killed in the line of duty. And I did a lot of searching! It was pretty easy to find a site that recorded the number of officers that were killed in the line of duty, but not so easy to find a single number that represented the entire amount of “wrongful” deaths due to police negligence.

Given the amount of situations that the police in the U.S. are put in on a daily bases I am glad that they have the responsibility of carrying firearms and the authority to use them. And, due to the distribution of officers to population how can we afford to lose any?





National data on shootings by police not collected

Looking for the number of burglaries last year in Devils Lake, N.D.? How about the increase in property crimes in Caribou, Maine? The answers (34 and 23 percent, respectively) are readily available from the FBI.
Want detailed information on how many people were shot by police in the United States last year?
That's not so easy to find.
The nation's leading law enforcement agency collects vast amounts of information on crime nationwide, but missing from this clearinghouse are statistics on where, how often, and under what circumstances police use deadly force. In fact, no one anywhere comprehensively tracks the most significant act police can do in the line of duty: take a life.
"We don't have a mandate to do that," said William Carr, an FBI spokesman in Washington, D.C. "It would take a request from Congress for us to collect that data."
Congress, it seems, hasn't asked.
The FBI, which has the power to conduct civil rights investigations related to any questionable use of deadly force by any law enforcement agency, has produced at least one report analyzing shootings over several years by its own agents.
In addition, the agency tracks the total annual number of "justifiable homicides," acts it defines as "the killing of a felon by a law enforcement officer in the line of duty," but that only covers people shot while committing a serious crime and the data aren't broken down by agency. In 2010, that number was 387, down from 414 the year before.
While the agency collects, reports, and analyzes murders and assaults where police are the victim, Carr said budgetary concerns would likely preclude collecting such detailed data on shootings by police.
Everyone from the Justice Department to the International Association of Police Chiefs to local and state police agencies have guidelines or policies on use of deadly force. But seldom do they try to quantify and analyze trends.
Some, the Los Angeles and San Diego police departments among them, do analyze shootings involving their own officers.
The Metropolitan Police Department created a statistical breakdown of officer-involved shootings between 2003 and 2008, listing data such as the age, gender, and race of officers and of shooting subjects. Following controversial incidents, the department did a similar breakdown for 2010. But neither report offers any analysis or draws any conclusions from the numbers.
The American Civil Liberties Union said police aren't required to publicly report officer-involved shooting information to anyone, but recently a judge ordered the New York Police Department to release that information to the New York Civil Liberties Union.
The NYPD fought disclosure, arguing it would violate the privacy of the officers and reveal investigative techniques, said Molly Kaplan, an American Civil Liberties Union spokeswoman.

http://www.lvrj.com/news/deadly-force/142-dead-and-rising/national-data-on-shootings-by-police-not-collected-134256308.html

Total Line of Duty Deaths: 173
9/11 related illness: 6
Aircraft accident: 1
Animal related: 1
Assault: 5
Automobile accident: 35
Drowned: 4
Duty related illness: 7
Explosion: 1
Gunfire: 67
Gunfire (Accidental): 5
Heart attack: 11
Heat exhaustion: 1
Motorcycle accident: 5
Stabbed: 2
Struck by vehicle: 4
Training accident: 1
Vehicle pursuit: 4
Vehicular assault: 12
Weather/Natural disaster: 1


Read more: www.odmp.org/search/year?year=2011#ixzz276qzcZvP

Criminals adapt to their enemy. Give guns to the police and criminals will not only generally be more on the edge and more "police-hating", but start attacking post offices with assault rifles.

No thanks.

The way I perceive police in the US is they have a lot of power, and considering my past, had I been in the US, I would have probably shot one or two... And considering in the US, 1 in 20 people goes to prison at some point in their life, I'm not the only one to think that way...

Rather anyone wants to admit it or not, whenever you have to conflicting sides there is some kind of an arms race. If we want to stop the need to “out perform” the other side then we need to eliminate the problem. Until that occurs, I feel it is our responsibility to aid those we have to protect us and uphold our laws.

And no offence ren, but you can rub people the wrong direction. I have no idea what occurred to give you such an opinion of the officer in question but I have no doubt that the old adage “it takes two to tango” could have been in play. Especially seeing how there was a clash of two cultures and two personalities.

I have heard many discussions like this before and it seems to me that the motivating factor for many of the people which take one side or another is fear. Fear that the power having a firearm will be miss used, fear that things will escalate or/and fear that it leaves the door open for bad things to happen. Bad things are happening. Things are escalating and there will always be those that miss use the authority given them. The question I have is do we let are fears control us or do we, as Jedi, let go of our fears and try to put a little faith in those that are out there to protect us?

PS: Sorry ren, I think I missread your last reply to the topic.