Poll: Arming the UK Police

[Corporal Yakob]

Glad to see common sense has prevailed and most people have opted for option one-the Police should be capable of dealing with any situation.

 

[GraveeKing]

Without sounding out the obvious but... don't like just over 1% of Americans population live in prison? I'm sure I read that somewhere several times over. Fact is, sure in the U.S 'this would have lasted 5 seconds they'd have just shot him' but here they can actually capture him and bring him to justice.
Yes it's good to have a backup for when proper gunfights break out like Swats, but the police are supposed to be (although sometimes I do doubt >.>) trained professionals, shooting people armed with a melee weapon isn't exactly something that requires skill, here I couldn't really see properly due to the camera but they did get the guy in the end without anyone being hurt.

 

[Jegsimmons]

, shot in the leg or hit with a LTL round like a beanbag.

Well truth is leg shots can in a large number of cases be fatal; also police forces are trained to shoot for the chest (except if the perp is thought to have a bomb vest in whic case its headshots) as its the largest area with greatest chance of hit (and hitting some random in the background).

Most of your limbs have arteries which if severed will release huge amounts of blood at high pressure; thus being a pain to prevent blood loss from.

Bottom line: guns rarely make a situation any safer

while your right about the leg wound can be fatal part, i respectfully disagree on the fact guns dont make thing safer. Well trained police can use guns effectively with out firring a shot. This guy new these cops were unarmed so he decided to show some balls. if they were armed he would have probably gave up sooner (or got taken down. either way the street is safer)

If you dig around on the internet you'll find that in the US alone (cant say anything for UK honestly) that ~2.6 million people are saved each year by having a gun on hand, huge percentage of them don't even fire a shot, just the knowledge that a cop or citizen is armed is enough to prevent a disaster. and that 2.6 million are just the ones called in. they estimate the number is closer to 4 million.

 

[Vrach]

Cops - guns = lolwut?

They're no better than a neighborhood watch.

^This (worse actually, a neighbourhood watch might have a firearm among them >.> ), I had no idea UK cops didn't carry firearms. That's just ridiculous.

Option one, obviously.

yeah we are clearly living in anarchy downhere, infact someone is robbing me as i type

/sarcasm

ridiculous as it may seem there isn't many situations that warrant firearm use down here (primarily because barely anyone has the damn things). Sure you get the occasional loon as the OP video showed but thats the minority, the police force needs to be able to handle the Majority of crimes. And if the majority of crimes can be handled without the use of a firearm, then they get solved. In rare cases with a gunman we get the sniper team in.

Its not all that outlandish an idea, although i do know you people love your guns out there.

I didn't say you were in anarchy and you're not "downhere" for me, you're actually "up there", am from Serbia

I'm just saying it's ridiculous for a police officer not to have a firearm for when it's needed. And from what I hear of my friends in the UK/on the news, it's not like you're some utopia that has less of such cases. Stabbings and shit all over the place apparently, I've heard of teen gangs chasing kids to death in the middle of the bloody day through the London subway without anyone stopping them and similar cases. Now, granted, this may be my friends trusting the media too much, but can't judge from down here any other way really.

If you can't even handle a guy with a melee weapon without resorting to a squad of 30 bloody cops (seriously, anyone thought of getting up to the apartment above him and throwing a cooking pan on his head or something?), how exactly is an armed gunman gonna go down? You can call in an armed team, sure, but even with the bloody SAS on full standby all over the city, you're still gonna have a response time and it only takes so long for a person to pull a trigger.

 

[Sir-jackington]

With an increase in the amount of illegal weapons in the UK i'd say it is becoming nessecary for police ot carry guns. It would probably also give them more authority, which they could do with. Only trepidation would be that sometimes that police can be a bit too on edge and it could end badly

 

[IndianaJonny]

I always think it's interesting to observe that we, in the UK think the Americans are crazy for having guns legal, whilst the Americans think we are crazy for having guns illegal. It just demonstrates how much the culture of the country you are born in can effect you.

Anyway, to answer the question. Naw, I live in London and I'm happy with the police and civilians being unarmed. It seems more civil.

What a civil response, nice job.

I realise I have neither the personal experience or knowledge to pass comment on US police practices, I just presume they're generally suitable to the culture/environment despite what appears instinctive to me (jaywalking?). Anyway, as the data [//www.unodc.org/pdf/crime/seventh_survey/7sc.pdf] stands it looks like we're doing quite well on the gun violence front in comparison to other places.

yeah we are clearly living in anarchy downhere,

/sarcasm

Oh, that just made my day!

 

[Rekrul]

I don't think rank and file should, obviously there should be trained units though. In the UK gun crime is not as big a thing as knife crime which is much bigger. This is shown by the UK police wearing stab proof vests not bulletproof ones.

 

[Robert Ewing]

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.

 

[LCP]

Police are not armed? That's a disaster waiting to happen.

All it needs is some psycho with a garage and some metalworking skills. or with the right connections and there'd be a disaster.

 

[Jegsimmons]

With an increase in the amount of illegal weapons in the UK i'd say it is becoming nessecary for police ot carry guns. It would probably also give them more authority, which they could do with. Only trepidation would be that sometimes that police can be a bit too on edge and it could end badly

i agree, thats a problem in America, its not the legal guns, they legal owners comit a very small percentage of crime (especially when you consider the fact 80 million people are registered gun onwers and not all gun owners have to be registered) its the illegal arms coming in through the mexican and canadian borders (mostly mexican). thats why we have an armed population too.

i hate to sound like a gun nut here, but if the cops and law abiding citizens aren't armed, who's going to stop the criminals who'll be armed either way?

also to anyone who says that armed shot out with the police is dangerous for citizens, the fact is that the police are trained and citizens usually stay clear from that stuff. citizens getting hurt in a police shoot out (not counting hostages) are rarely injured.

 

[Jonny49]

Why not use taser technology instead? Non-lethal, yet still able to incapacitate a target from a distance.

Problem solved.

 

[GaryH]

Snip.

Absolutely. I think that we're on the same page after all.

I think that it's a massive shame that there is this worldwide hatred of america. Believe me when I say that I'm not one to buy into those stereotypes. While most of the stereotypes do have a grain of truth (and I've experienced a lot of them first hand) I'm not dense enough to believe that it applies to anything more than a tiny minority of americans. Thank you for your reply.

 

[Jegsimmons]

Firearms in the UK would be overkill with the restrictions placed on them. Tasers, batons, and shields.

Plus like in the video you can use overwhelming force.

and then what happens when another emergency happens and all the cops are busy else where? or what if he had an illegal firearm? its best to have cops trained and prepared in all scenarios.

 

[Jon Shannow]

Police are not armed? That's a disaster waiting to happen.

All it needs is some psycho with a garage and some metalworking skills. or with the right connections and there'd be a disaster.

Well it's been a disaster waiting to happen for near 200 years then

 

[Dogstile]

If the police can have guns, I should be able to.

...So, the police shouldn't have guns then?

Pretty much The only police who should are the armed response, who are the specialized squads for it. Typical police usually can't handle them correctly, and I say this with the least amount of malice possible.

 

[LCP]

Police are not armed? That's a disaster waiting to happen.

All it needs is some psycho with a garage and some metalworking skills. or with the right connections and there'd be a disaster.

Well it's been a disaster waiting to happen for near 200 years then

Hopefully for longer, but actions must be taken to prevent.

 

[Wieke]

This poll made me wonder about the police & firearms in the Netherlands. So I googled it and found that in the Netherlands the police do carry firearms (if they're trained). They also carry a pair of handcuffs, peperspray, baton and walkie-talkie. Use is heavily restricted as they are only allowed to draw the weapon when dealing with someone that could threaten them immediately with a firearm or with someone who's committed a crime worth 4 or more years.

Note that I voted for option 3. I think we should strive for a police force only armed with non-lethal weapons (except for specialist teams for exceptional circumstances). Though I'm not sure current non lethal methods are reliable enough.

 

[epikAXE]

With firearms comes the inevitable misuse of firearms. Loss of life should be avoided at all costs, especially to those in the police force, who keep us safe from machette wielding men like the OP video. So, they should be for protecting life, not ending it, if that makes sense?

 

[Spongebobdickpants]

I pick option A - Arm the police officers, legalise firearms

I'd like gun legalisation too, but I don't see that happening any time soon in the UK. Still, gun crime has been steadily tracking upwards at 34% per year since guns were completely abolished a few decades back in the UK. Perhaps soon a judge or a politician will be executed by a gunman and then they'll get a taste of what it's like to live in Peckham or Catford.

I can't condone empowering the state without empowering the people.

Then whats the point in guns? Instead of a mad guy swinging a machete at police it will be him shooting at them. Is that better?

I've heard and seen what america with that where everyone and they're mum has a gun and wouldnt like that here.

IMO give police guns with rubber bullets.

 

[willsham45]

NO GUNS as standard means no mistaken shootings by police. That does not really happen in the UK and i would like to keep it that way.

At the moment a rog bobby can only beat you up not stick lots of little holes in you.

When the shit hits the fran then the full body armour and guns can come out, but only after.