Amazulu

Sure but we have hindsight on this case. A few factors changed and it could have had a very different outcome.

Amazulu

From what I have read, there are only 4 countries in the world where police are routinely unarmed - UK, Ireland, NZ and Norway. So the UK is out of touch IMO.

In the 21st century, unarmed police cannot do a proper job of defending the population and upholding the law.

Time to Glock up.

geordiebloke

Maybe the choice should for the front line cops themselves, after all it's they who take the risks.
And when opinion polls, supposedly representing the view of police are produced, it should be remembered that they usually include many cops who joined up in a different era and many who are no longer operational.

The only ones who should really have a say in this matter, are current front line operational police.

BadgeIsBack

Agreed.
Most coppers have not trained with weapons. They would see it as being alien, whatever any perceived change in threat.

In other forces, you know you will get a gun. I wonder what UK-based police who have transferred over have to say on the matter?

GarryP

That's your desire, but totally unsupported by evidence, sense, or any kind of strategic decision making.

Much, much, better to cleanse guns from society, and keep them out. Then the police don't have to be routinely armed and EVERYONE is safer.

Arming police against a backdrop of generally available guns results in more deaths, not less.

Amazulu

guns don't kill people, rappers do

Jon77

The thing is countries that do have amred police (USA for example) still have incidents where police have been shot, arming the police won't solve the problem. If an evil ***** is intent on ambusing soemone and shooting them then they will achieve that regardless.

Probably the only difference is that the police officer will be shot and possibly killed and also the criminal doing the shooting will also be killed, that is the only difference.

Throwinng more guns at the problem won't solve it. I am personally agains the arming of UK police, but then I am aware that if I was a meber of the family of one of those shot or a police officer than I might think very differently perhaps.

Amazulu

Plenty of cases where the bad guys have been killed and the good guys haven't.

GarryP

Plenty of cases where the innocent have been killed and injured as well - and that's the point. You are safer if you get rid of guns generally.

Amazulu

A question for which I do not know the answer?

Are all UK police firearm trained?

If not, then they are not properly trained and unprepared for their job. Half a police force.

geordiebloke

A statement of the obvious, but unrealistic. Criminals do not usually have legally held guns and society has to have a way of dealing with them.

Zen10

Yes different culture, no not irrelevant. I agree Australia is better comparison. A lot of UK cops are armed anyway - the guns are kept in the cars locked up. Beat bobbies, as they were called, of course are unarmed. I'm don't have strong opinions on it either way, but don't like knee-jerk reaction policies like the idiotic banning of handguns after Dunblane.

Zen10

Quite - look at the recent shootings in NYC - the cops caused all the damage by just firing all over the place in a busy street.

geordiebloke

Nope, only a small percentage are firearms trained and contrary to some of the ill informed rubbish you read, they are actually trained to a very high standard, comparable to any law enforcement unit worldwide.

Zen10

My feeling is that if you arm police you'll get shoot outs on the street, which are currently very rare in UK. UK is a very big population in a small place which makes it worse. And of course the number of illegal guns will go up as the criminals try to match the newly armed police force.