Poll: Arming the UK Police

[XHolySmokesX]

I went option 1

I think they should all be armed, but not all handguns. Guns are created with the intention of killing, so guns should only be supplied to special police groups such as ARV's.

Standard police however, should be given stun guns, or something similar, that can temporarily render a person harmless for long enough for the police to contain them.

That way the police would be able to deal with criminals such as this with ease, and there would be armed back up for any situations win which the police are being fired at by armed criminals. sorted.

 

[Silent observer]

One of the best things that can be said for our country is the police don't need to carry guns. As you say, the majority of the rest of the world has cops with guns, but we don't - and I feel much happier for it.

 

[Latinidiot]

Give them tazers, by christ. It's not lethal, and has the same stopping power as a bullet.

Or those guns that shoot tazers, I don't know what they're called.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Option one. To protect and serve the people, law enforcements require firearms.

If you aren't persuaded by the video, then I thank the fact you are not in charge of any state or federal Australian police authorities, because firearms should never be removed from their side, and under any circumstance theyy do or do not believe to need a firearm, they should carry one, because anything could happen.

police officers are there to keep the peace, not kill people. The UK doesn't suffer from out of control criminality and we have almost no gun crime. What possible use could we have for arming our officers when there is no clear need for them to be so?

I'm picking on you because my post comes after yours. Watch the video. If even one of those police officers had a firearm, they could've shot the suspect in the chest, arm, leg, ect, not fatally wounding them, and removing any possibility that the suspect would harm anyone else. Threat contained, damage none. In this scenario it took the time of 30+ officers to detain '1' person. That is inefficent when the cost of a single round would've saved all that hassle.

There is no such thing as shooting to wound/not fatally injuring. From what I have picked up from speaking with Police Officers, firearms doctrine is shooting for the centre of mass (the chest) and to keep shooting until the target stops moving.

In the case of this man here, it would have resulted in his death. The Police have a duty to protect the public, and in this case they protected a man from himself. To me that is the height of nobility. Well done lads, pints of bitter all around.

I certainly wouldn't object to the UK police being issued with tazers, beanbag shotguns or CS pellet rifles. Nor would I intend to disarm the Australian Police force; we have achieved balance with it and the system here need not change.

 

[Jesus Phish]

I voted 3.

I don't think the every day police man should carry fire arms around with them at all times, unless those tazer guns (the ones you can shoot from a distance and use two nodes attached to wires to pass the current) count as fire arms. I think the standard every day officer should be equipped with them over mace/pepper spray.

In Ireland we have the same situation. Our police force, don't carry fire arms. I'm not even sure if they carry a form of pepper spray with them.

-Edit-
Just as an aside to the OP, thats a brilliant way to put the poll options imo.

 

[comadorcrack]

police officers are there to keep the peace, not kill people. The UK doesn't suffer from out of control criminality and we have almost no gun crime. What possible use could we have for arming our officers when there is no clear need for them to be so?

THANK YOU!
Someone with some bloody sense on this thread.
I'm really gonna try my hardest not to call everyone retards, cos I know that'll end in a ban or suspension... but its soo damn hard when you're all acting soooo stupid.

For one. The UK police ARE ALREADY ARMED!!!! We have a special unit that deals with gun crime and other high risk situations. We call them the armed response unit... Ever heard of them?
Theres no point arming every day to day PC because then every thug in Britain will feel the need to carry as well. The crime rate will double, no triple, no it'll increase ten fold if the UK police carry guns. The criminals will have to respond by getting better guns.

The situation is far from perfect, but its better than most countries (Especially America). Yes I know we do have criminal with guns but only a select few... Thats why we have a specialist unit for situations involving guns. We don't need constable X pulling a pistol on ever pickpocket in London.

 

[Conza]

Option one. To protect and serve the people, law enforcements require firearms.

If you aren't persuaded by the video, then I thank the fact you are not in charge of any state or federal Australian police authorities, because firearms should never be removed from their side, and under any circumstance theyy do or do not believe to need a firearm, they should carry one, because anything could happen.

snip

Snip... If even one of those police officers had a firearm, they could've shot the suspect in the chest, arm, leg, ect, not fatally wounding them, and removing any possibility that the suspect would harm anyone else. Threat contained, damage none. In this scenario it took the time of 30+ officers to detain '1' person. That is inefficent when the cost of a single round would've saved all that hassle.

EDIT: And let me add, if anyone else was actually wounded, or forbid, killed as a result of no firearms as could've easily been the case in this scenario, you might think twice about giving the proper tools, to the people we entrust our safety to.

There is no such thing as shooting to wound/not fatally injuring. From what I have picked up from speaking with Police Officers, firearms doctrine is shooting for the centre of mass (the chest) and to keep shooting until the target stops moving.

In the case of this man here, it would have resulted in his death. The Police have a duty to protect the public, and in this case they protected a man from himself. To me that is the height of nobility. Well done lads, pints of bitter all around.

I certainly wouldn't object to the UK police being issued with tazers, beanbag shotguns or CS pellet rifles. Nor would I intend to disarm the Australian Police force; we have achieved balance with it and the system here need not change.

I hardly find myself saying this Gordon, but I have no room to move other than, you are wrong.

Why? It certainly is possible to shoot to wound and any enforment, intelligence or military agency worth its salt knows how to, and tries to.

Shooting him in the chest would have a high likelihood of causing death, not having the ability to shoot him, anywhere, would certainly have the chance of one of the officers dying.

The Police do have a duty to protect the public, but if you tie their hands, and give them toy bats and pepper spray, someone is going to get hurt and someone is going to get killed, and eventually they'll say 'gee, in that situation, officer x would've likily continued living had he wounded/killed suspect y, I think we should start arming the men and women who we charge with saving our lives on a day to day basis, that might be a good idea from now on'.

Pints of bitter all round? It took 30 of those poor officers to arrest 1 suspect, its not their fault, but as a police force, thats pathetic, not on an individual level, if they had just been given the proper tools, none of that non-sense would be necessary, it was a wide open space, plenty of officers on the scene, none of them would've needed to kill him, they would've maced him, wacked him, used the wheelie bins or what have you, then finally, when he was still a threat, one of them would've aimed their side arm, and taken him down, dead or alive, and that's the way it should be.

 

[Conza]

"taken him down, dead or alive, and that's the way it should be." no, no it isn't.

the police in Britain police by consent and although i know you wont have the faintest idea what that means but its a deeply ingrained principal in British law enforcement. the police do know what it means know and do not want to be armed (despite suggestions from uniformed posters in the thread that probably would) there is fundamentally no need to do so and the Americans who have posted and voted in this thread on an issue that has zero relation to them have been repeatedly told that time and time and time again yet simply refuse to listen trying inanely and pointlessly to apply their cultural and political arguments to a foreign society and culture where they simply do not belong and are not relevant.

our government doesn't have the right to kill us even if we do commit a crime and the police are neither the army of the law or government.

that mental patient shouldn't have been on the streets but we have failed politically motivated "care in the community" mental health care and the closing of mental hospitals to blame for that and although that video of a singular indecent may be farcical keystone cops material it in no way justifies killing the man or the wholesale arming of the British police force after hundreds of years of history where strangely enough we haven't actually become crime ridden hell hole despite the fact the police haven't been armed.

i even saw one person suggest it would be cheaper to shot him than employ all those cops which is sickening. you simply don't get it do you ? we don't even extradite people from the UK to the US if they are going to face the death penalty. what in the world makes you think we would, under any circumstances, want every police officer carrying one ?

Forgive my lack of liberalism on the subject Mr. mikezero, but if that man with the machete had chopped off your daughters head, and police were there powerless to stop him, you'd think to yourself 'I wish they had a gun'.

I don't want the mentally disabled to be killed, just because the mental health facility that treated him was incompetent, I want him to get help and come back to society, but I'm want insurance that if it did come down to a choice between his life, or the life of one or more officers, the officer would make the call to take him down, dead, or, alive.

And our government doesn't have a right to kill us? This is a new trend, our governments, or our leaders in ancient times, had the right and the will, to kill anyone who caused any form of decent or disharmony that didn't please them. We should be so lucky that they don't kill those of us who behave badly, take innocent's lives, and lower our society.

I don't have any idea what it means because you didn't explain it, and please, use quotes so I know where the saying begins and ends. And there is a fundamental need, this scenario is just the first example of where a gun is necessary, there are nearly countless more situations which would leave civilians and officers at a high chance of fatality, and why risk it? Arming police won't suddenly mean the criminals will all magically become armed, and I'm not suggesting for a moment we give the police a missile launcher, every time someone steals a purse either.

All it will do, would be to same guard the lives of the British citizens, who are in any danger of injury or death. And guns aren't a guarantee either, but they sure as hell are a better chance, than sticks and spices.

 

[DigitalAtlas]

To being up a thread from earlier with a really good post:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.286317-Do-Americans-have-a-right-to-carry?page=7#11299362

Scroll down (or to the next page) where he shows graphs of how well the UK police actually do providing evidence.

Username in case the link fails: The_root_of_all_evil.

 

[NickCooley]

The problem isn't that our police aren't armed. It's the bureaucratic, red tape nightmare that is the UK. Police these days are glorified secretaries, filling out and filing forms and papers, that occasionally go out and arrest someone. That situation could have been resolved by 2 officers, one to keep him busy and another to stand behind him and give him a whack around the bonce with a truncheon, but no the government won't allow that. Heaven forbid, you might hurt the machete wielding nutter.

Cut the red tape, let the police do their jobs without someone pointing fingers when a crack dealer caught at a school scratches his arm and give them more than 3p and box of Dib-Dabs for a budget.

 

[Conza]

the guy was arrested and no one was hurt.
fact.

we've done just fine with "the sticks" for almost as long as you've been a country.
get the hell over yourself and your assumed superiority.

get your crime figures and percentage of prisoners per head of population down to below ours and then you can talk down to us and bare in mind we do it all without imbuing fear in our population of a police force with guns.

newsflash: we don't want to be the 51st state.

Fact. A mental patient, armed with a machete, was roaming the streets and required the work and effort of 30 officers to arrest him.

Fact. 28 or 29 of those officers could've easily been re-assigned to somewhere to be more efficiently allocated, if the use of one firearm was available, just one firearm, just one small pistol to knock this guy down, not kill him, in his right mind, I'll bet he'd have rather been knocked down with a bullet than have the later knowledge of knowing he killed someone - wouldn't you?

My assumed superiority? Firstly, I'm Australian, believe it or not, and while you seem to have done 'just fine' without firearm protected citizens, we'll keep our people safe thank you very much, and not risk innocent people or police officers dying needlessly.

Now I couldn't find apples and apples when comparing Australia vs. the UK, but they appear to be on a similar level regarding the stats they do measure against

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_ass_percap-crime-assaults-per-capita

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_vic-crime-total-victims

So, please put up or shut up, would be my stand point, as I can't effectively do either here.

51st state? I'll have you know, I have great respect for Britain, all western cultures and countries owe everything to the empire, where the sun never set. But this is the 21st century, your empire has disbanded, you are no longer the rulers and the conquerors, but the diplomats and the negotiators, frankly, you should be proud of that fact... instead of claiming in some twisted reality the US will try to conquer you?

Lastly, imbuing fear? People who fear their own law enforcement are either just paranoid or criminals themselves, everyone else should respect the jobs they do, as they serve 'you' you are the people, as a person, you are protected by the law enforcement individuals, innocent until proven guilty, you are not a criminal until you commit a crime, so until then, police officers work for you, not against you. And as I pay taxes, I want to see my taxes going to a trained group of people, who will effective circumvent any situations where someone might be harmed or killed, and that is best served, armed.

 

[Treblaine]

I prefer mostly Option 2.

I think the best balance is to take advantage of how most police officers are vehicle mobile and have every car equipped with a gun-safe.

Because the scenario that has been noted often is general police officers who are very capable are forced to stand-down and leave a member of the public defenceless to spite calling for the police... jsut because there is the slightest indication of a gun beign involved. Some street thug just has to say "I'm coming back with my gun" and the police must stand down yet such a baseless threat is such a low priority for the armed response unit.

If the police could at any moment switch from unarmed police (low-capability, low-liability) to armed (high-capability, high-liability) at the discretion of a high ranking officer depending on the situation. This gives the officers the capability to enter an area of high firearms risk armed, but if it is just a domestic disturbance or drunken louts then going in armed would be a liability.

I don't think option 3 is practical (what we have at the moment) as this allows criminals to obstruct police by the insinuation of firearms. It is impossible to get the right balance between beat-police and ARV police:

ARV = can't do general police work with a submachine gun in one hand
Beat police = can't enter an area where guns are threatened.

Criminals exploit gaps in systems MERCILESSLY

Bottom Line
I think the police must realise the public are far more worried about the police being impotent against increasingly well armed criminals than the idea they are "oooh, cops with guns too unapproachable".

I invite police to think outside the box, armed police do not necessarily need pistols, which are a liability in how easily they can be snatched and concealed. What about Pistol Carbines as standard issue that has several advantages:
-easy to don or stow as it can be carried in sling, rather than belt holster.
-far easier to train to be accurate due to longer sight-radius, shoulder stock for recoil and cheek-weld, forestock for fine aim, high-clarity sights etc, etc
-better firearm safety, its easier to keep a long barrel pointed in a safe direction, pistols are too tempting to wave around
-Less frightening: rifles may be bigger but people seem to be inherently more threatened by pistols, look at most anti-gun literature it focuses on pistols out of all proportion...
-harder for a criminal to steal it and make away with it without being spotted.
-easier to conceal a tracking device in a rifle than pistol

 

[Togs]

What system do we have know? whatever it is it seems to be working well enough.

 

[orangeban]

Of course police in Britain need firearms. The legal system is tough in this country, but in a really relaxed way. The criminals incarcerated often end up having better lives than most people living in the middle class. It's a joke that inmates can get leather couches, plasma screen TV's and all the food they can eat (all at the expense of the tax payer I might add.)

Firearms won't solve our hideous legal system, but it will take us one step forward. For example, a Policeman is not allowed to make contact with a suspect in an aggressive way. Now, the suspect can lie, and say it was aggressive for example. In which case the officer would be stripped of his title, and fired. And the suspect is eligible to apply for compensation, and a formal apology, and an inquiry into the state of the police attitude. Absolute joke.

Police should be tough to enforce the law in a country like this. Because it's out of control.

No way, no how is the life for prisoners better than most middle-class peoples life.
People don't seem to get that prison's main punishment isn't not having TV or radio or books, it is the restrictions on liberty that is the real punishment. Follow the law and you have freedom, otherwise...

Also, do you know that we have a reason for not treating the prisoners like shit? If you make prison all about punishment (give prisoners little nice things, or none at all) then they are much more likely to reoffend, which is why we focus on rehabilitation instead. So your tax-payers money is actually going to prisoners, so that they stop commiting crime.

Secondly, suspects are innocent until proven guilty. That rule is golden and must always be enforced. No one has the right to be abused in anyway if they're perfectly law-abiding citizens. And even if someone does claim they were touched aggressively, they spend a long time making sure this was true (why would anyone not claim they were aggressively touched if they would instantly get let off?)

Also, you are living in some kind of parallel earth Britain my friend if you think (I presume you mean) crime is out of control. It really isn't, our crime rates are low, low enough that my consituencies party was focusing on "youth deliquents" and Anti-Social Behaviour Orders as part of it's law and order schtick. If they can focus on that, then other crime isn't too much of a problem.

But it's been confirmed that the reason British prisons are so crowded is because criminals WANT to go back to prison! It's an easier life in there! It's easier than getting a real job and living in the real world.

Tbh, it's a sad country when prisoners prefer prison to the outside.

Again I am forced to disagree. Firstly http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/uk_prisons_in_the_uk/html/5.stm is a very interesting link (from the BBC no less) that, while not mentioning causes of reoffence does mention worryingly high levels of suicide and self-harm in prison. If prison is so great why would this be the case?

And now I want to analyse your view more closely. The "prisoners need harsh punishment, rather than rehabilitation" viewpoint often accompanies a view that crime is the fault of the individual, and therefore the individual should be punished. The rehabilitation argument is often accompanied by the idea that crime is (at least partly) the fault of society. The figures in that bbc link show that a much higher percentage of prisoners ran away from their parents, were excluded from school and have no qualifications. This shows that criminals often turn to crime since they have been dealt a shit card in life, and with rehabilitation they get the opportunity to be good citizens and live proper, legal lives.

"But," you may say, "Your generalization of me into the 'crime is the fault of the individual alone' group is unfair. I happen to have the few that crime is societies failure but that prisoners get it too easy anyway."

Well, even if you do say that, this idea still aplies. With the idea that criminals are not fundamentally bad people comes the idea that by punishing them severely, and thus breeding hatred of the system and the state in particular can warp someone into a "bad person" or at least someone who radically disagrees with society. But by being relatively easy on them (remember, they still lose liberty which is perhaps the greatest thing you can take from a person other than life) and showing them how to be functioning citizens we create a safer world with more productive, happy people, which is what we all want.

 

[rossatdi]

Got the knife stats also per capita? Or just general violent crime?

No but I'm sure the glory of the internet can help you out. Its higher than some and lower than others, what it doesn't have is maniacs running around and cutting up police officers despite a few tragic cases.

Just seems strange that the source you pulled for gun crime wouldn't have other violent crimes?

I presume wikipedia does. The fact is that most violent crime is not preventable by any level of armament. If someone decides to take a butcher knife, kick in someone else's door and stab them to death, police armed with mecha suits aren't going to be able to do anything. Similarly, if someone thinks carrying a knife with them is a great idea, gets in to a heated debate at the pub and knifes someone, superman is unlikely to be able to intervene in time.

Now if the country was experiencing massed gangs of knife and gun wielding nutters driving police off the street and slaughtering the gentle folk of Blighty I'd be all for arming with police with fully automatic, cyanide tipped, explosive round firing light machine guns.

If the police can have guns then so should citizens. Gun control is such a stupid concept. Your taking guns away from people that want to LEGALLY obtain one. Criminals don't get guns legally their freaking criminals. Either politicans are all idiots or they just like knowing pissed off citizens that will probably crack one day cant fight back as well as they can. Didn't crime in the UK go up like 40% after the gun ban? Makes no sense whatsoever. That's politicans for you though. Logic and common sense are two things you can't have to be a politician for some reason. Glad I live in America.

Er, no I don't think crime went up 40% in the UK after the gun ban. Like to see where you heard that mumbo-jumbo from! Sourced via wiki, via various government stat bureaus (for 2000):

1. Intentional homicides per 100,000 inhabitants:
UK 1.7 | US 5.5

USA! USA! USA!

2. Percentage of homicides carried out with a firearm:
UK 8% | US 46%

USA! USA! USA!

3. By deduction: Intentional homicides by firearm per 100,000 inhabitants:
UK 0.14 | US 2.5

USA! USA! USA!

===

Now I really like America and Americans, in fact I've lived there and I married one, but the sheer comedy value of letting a domestic population own handguns and automatic weaponry is great. Rifles and shotguns fine, I guess, hunting and home protection (and ticks that anachronistic 'militia' bit in the constitution).

The US is probably in too deep for a 'ban' but to preach to other countries without a major problem? That's just silly. Loads of crimes are committed with guns and many are stopped by it. But you know what? Legally owned guns become illegally owned guns quite easily. If I legally own a couple of guns and someone burgles my house and steals a gun, that's a quick route to a vast stockpile of illegal firearms. That's a lot easier than smuggling them onto an island nation too.

 

[Baneat]

Got the knife stats also per capita? Or just general violent crime?

No but I'm sure the glory of the internet can help you out. Its higher than some and lower than others, what it doesn't have is maniacs running around and cutting up police officers despite a few tragic cases.

Just seems strange that the source you pulled for gun crime wouldn't have other violent crimes?

I presume wikipedia does. The fact is that most violent crime is not preventable by any level of armament. If someone decides to take a butcher knife, kick in someone else's door and stab them to death, police armed with mecha suits aren't going to be able to do anything. Similarly, if someone thinks carrying a knife with them is a great idea, gets in to a heated debate at the pub and knifes someone, superman is unlikely to be able to intervene in time.

Now if the country was experiencing massed gangs of knife and gun wielding nutters driving police off the street and slaughtering the gentle folk of Blighty I'd be all for arming with police with fully automatic, cyanide tipped, explosive round firing light machine guns.

As much as I hate pragmatic arguments as a deontologist, you can't use two entirely different sources to draw a conclusion like that, so, gun crime per capita when forced to resort to an alternative in the comparison is useless without that alternative. Maybe 200,000 more victims died from guns after it was legalised, useless unless a good number less were being killed by knives before, if you get me.

 

[Confused_Dude]

We must note that the vast majority of people voting here are not from the UK. There is no such culture where everyone has the right to bear arms, and this is there is such low gun crime, and it is rare for police to carry.

Guns + More Guns = Bigger problem.