Poll: Should UK police be given guns as standard issue?

[theultimateend]

[HEADING=1]No[/HEADING]

We predicted someone would ask this question. It's wrong. You cannot balance this by firearms. Please, for the love of god, stop trying to arm the English.

That is all.

Your name is ironic because much of what you say is actually sensible.

Or are you saying sensibility is evil! !!!

No is the correct answer. Guns don't solve problems ever. They merely delay an issue and most often exasperate it.

The UK police doesn't get any guns? That's weird. Our police get guns.

Our riots get struck down incredibly fast because we know how to properly kick somebody's ass.

...with bullets and electricity.

You can't defend yourself with a stick unless the person attacking you is unarmed. And that's only a one on one fight (or kung-fu movie). In a riot, you are fucked.

Where are you talking about? I'm assuming not the US.

Especially if you are mentioning electricity, the increasing number of tazer related assaults by police officers on people is quite alarming.

So Canada? Or maybe another European country?

Doubt Germany since I've never met a friendlier group of folks (for anyone who hasn't been to Germany that's not sarcasm).

Spill it! I am curious! (oh right you can't till I hit post...derp)

 

[Dan Steele]

I would say yes in the event of a zombie outbreak

 

[Twilight_guy]

I live in the US. our police have guns. Yeah it ends badly sometimes but on the plus side if someone with a gun does show and starts firing at officers they aren't forced to run away. As a matter of fact actually shooting someone is a big hassle for an officer since they have to justify the act and its designed to be as painful as possible to keep them in line. Guns give the police authority since they can kill your ass if you don't cooperate. In a perfect world no one would need guns of course but in the real world that scumbag that just broke the law might very well be carrying and that puts the officer at a disadvantage.
Of course I'm just an ignorant fat idiot from the US who can't tie his own shoes because I was born in the stupid capital of the world (or so people tell me) and I don't have the kind of grasp on local culture people in the UK do.

I also love how many people think that the police are going to immediately abuse there power the instant you give them something. If the police were really that corrupt then guys would be getting beat to death everyday and not a day would go by without an investigation into UK police.

 

[lacktheknack]

General question I have: How are the police supposed to protect themselves from gang members shooting at them? This isn't rhetorical, clearly there's SOME method of self defense.

Armed Response Teams. When a shoot out stats, regular coppers shoot off and the Armed Response Teams come in (think SWAT teams). We also have helicopters, armed cars, snipers ect.

I'm not talking rioters, I'm talking a policeman or two alone in an alley when some guy runs up waving a gun yelling "I'M GONNA BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF!"

Because I'm under the impression that that's more or less what happened. Except this time, the guy actually DID fire a bullet into their police radio.

Although if you send armored cars after these situations, there is all kinds of awesome in that...

 

[theultimateend]

General question I have: How are the police supposed to protect themselves from gang members shooting at them? This isn't rhetorical, clearly there's SOME method of self defense.

Armed Response Teams. When a shoot out stats, regular coppers shoot off and the Armed Response Teams come in (think SWAT teams). We also have helicopters, armed cars, snipers ect.

I'm not talking rioters, I'm talking a policeman or two alone in an alley when some guy runs up waving a gun yelling "I'M GONNA BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF!"

Because I'm under the impression that that's more or less what happened. Except this time, the guy actually DID fire a bullet into their police radio.

Although if you send armored cars after these situations, there is all kinds of awesome in that...

Compare the amount of times this sort of thing happens. Knee Jerk Reactions to isolated incidents is what has hurt the US so many times in the last 100 years.

The reason the US Police need to be armed is because of some very bad policy decisions and the perversion we have to firearms. The amount of widescale rioting or police shootings in the UK are not like they are in Mexico. Nor like the US.

It's a bunch of apples trying to anecdotally justify giving oranges guns.

 

[Balobo]

We'd end up like America

What the fuck does this even mean? At least America doesn't have these idiots running around burning every store they can find

 

[lacktheknack]

General question I have: How are the police supposed to protect themselves from gang members shooting at them? This isn't rhetorical, clearly there's SOME method of self defense.

Armed Response Teams. When a shoot out stats, regular coppers shoot off and the Armed Response Teams come in (think SWAT teams). We also have helicopters, armed cars, snipers ect.

I'm not talking rioters, I'm talking a policeman or two alone in an alley when some guy runs up waving a gun yelling "I'M GONNA BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF!"

Because I'm under the impression that that's more or less what happened. Except this time, the guy actually DID fire a bullet into their police radio.

Although if you send armored cars after these situations, there is all kinds of awesome in that...

Compare the amount of times this sort of thing happens. Knee Jerk Reactions to isolated incidents is what has hurt the US so many times in the last 100 years.

The reason the US Police need to be armed is because of some very bad policy decisions and the perversion we have to firearms. The amount of widescale rioting or police shootings in the UK are not like they are in Mexico. Nor like the US.

It's a bunch of apples trying to anecdotally justify giving oranges guns.

Point missed. My question was "How do they protect themselves in these situations?"

Because if their only option is "flee", then clearly we have some major issues here, no matter how you look at it.

 

[Rawne1980]

We'd end up like America

What the fuck does this even mean? At least America doesn't have these idiots running around burning every store they can find

I didn't mean it as a criticism.

Guns aren't an everyday thing over here and I wouldn't want them to be. Can you imagine all those muppets in the riots now if they had fire power?

Guns are more common place in America and as such people have grown with the idea of owning but not shooting your neighbour in the face (mostly). We haven't had that here so if it started taking off then it would be a shit storm waiting to happen.

 

[F'Angus]

In special circumstances then yes...but we do have non deadly ammunition.

 

[nolongerhere]

General question I have: How are the police supposed to protect themselves from gang members shooting at them? This isn't rhetorical, clearly there's SOME method of self defense.

Armed Response Teams. When a shoot out stats, regular coppers shoot off and the Armed Response Teams come in (think SWAT teams). We also have helicopters, armed cars, snipers ect.

I'm not talking rioters, I'm talking a policeman or two alone in an alley when some guy runs up waving a gun yelling "I'M GONNA BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF!"

Because I'm under the impression that that's more or less what happened. Except this time, the guy actually DID fire a bullet into their police radio.

Although if you send armored cars after these situations, there is all kinds of awesome in that...

Compare the amount of times this sort of thing happens. Knee Jerk Reactions to isolated incidents is what has hurt the US so many times in the last 100 years.

The reason the US Police need to be armed is because of some very bad policy decisions and the perversion we have to firearms. The amount of widescale rioting or police shootings in the UK are not like they are in Mexico. Nor like the US.

It's a bunch of apples trying to anecdotally justify giving oranges guns.

Point missed. My question was "How do they protect themselves in these situations?"

Because if their only option is "flee", then clearly we have some major issues here, no matter how you look at it.

That situation hardly ever occurs. As in 6 police fatalities from shootings since 1990. Outside of Northern Ireland, there have been 67 since 1900. You may as well justify having them go around in tanks because someone might try to blow up a police car. It's not a serious issue in this country.

 

[PixelKing]

Yeah, because shooting people who are running away from the riots by accident is a good idea.

 

[thathaloguy117]

Yes, in fact arm everyone. Switzerland does this and they maintain the lowest gun crime rate in the world. If everyone owns a weapon then nobody in their right mind would try to rob someone else. If you take the other path and make weapons outlawed then only owtlaws will have weapons.

 

[Your Fearless Captain]

The English can't be trusted with weapons. So no.

 

[Taham]

I think all police should be able to use them, but I don't think they should be llowed to carry them as a matter of course.

 

[Dan Comber]

This whole riot started (though isn't any more) because ONE PERSON got shot. If the police started shooting everyone, this could go on much longer. Peaceful pacification is the best method.

 

[theultimateend]

Point missed. My question was "How do they protect themselves in these situations?"

Because if their only option is "flee", then clearly we have some major issues here, no matter how you look at it.

It's like putting an FBI warning on a movie. You are making sweeping changes that aren't very effective just to try and prevent a very specific problem.

Giving a cop a gun doesn't mean that guy trying to blow his brains out won't succeed. I would need some data that says "Cop + gun = Cop Lives."

Otherwise it is just a knee jerk response to an unlikely situation where your resolution likely wouldn't help anyways. Every officer in the US is armed, quite a few are murdered every year. (I think something like 300, but I don't have support for that)

"On average, more than 65,000 law enforcement officers are assaulted each year and some 23,000 are injured annually." - Nab'd from http://www.leoaffairs.info/ (Might be inaccurate)

So you have the one unarmed officer in the UK, versus 65K armed officers in the US. To be fair the number in the UK of assaults is 126,860 officers in the last 5 years. Which comes out to like 25K a year.

61,838,154 people in UK
307,006,550 people in the US

That's a 1:5 ratio.

So it looks like the police in the UK are assaulted about twice as much (since you'd expect something like 13K a year). I don't know what constitutes an assault in each country, or how many are repeats or whatever.

There are tons of variables to be taken into account. Cultures, economies, population booms or busts. But I'd be willing to bet a shiny pence that if you armed every officer in the UK you wouldn't see a statistically significant drop in assaults.

The English can't be trusted with weapons. So no.

This made me laugh (or at least smile). Thanks ...back to work .

 

[Balobo]

We'd end up like America

What the fuck does this even mean? At least America doesn't have these idiots running around burning every store they can find

I didn't mean it as a criticism.

Guns aren't an everyday thing over here and I wouldn't want them to be. Can you imagine all those muppets in the riots now if they had fire power?

Guns are more common place in America and as such people have grown with the idea of owning but not shooting your neighbour in the face (mostly). We haven't had that here so if it started taking off then it would be a shit storm waiting to happen.

Oh okay I understand.

 

[duowolf]

No just no the last thing I want to see is our cops armed with guns. Not a good idea at all.

 

[Daddy Go Bot]

Ell Oh Ell at people implying that only American police forces are issued guns. That's cute, really cute.

Disregarding all this rioting nonsense that's going around, yes I support the notion of giving police men guns. C'mon, if you gotta wear that silly hat you should at least carry a gun to balance it out.