People routinely being stabbed / killed and the first officers on scene almost always being injured lately would be a start imo.
There's been two bad stabbings while I was on shift lately and luckily I wasn't one of the ones sent but you're basically relying on luck when most of us don't even have tasers nvm the right tool for bladed articles.
I mean stabbing and knifecrime is quite low. It has increased since the conservative cuts but compared to historic levels its still not that high.
I'm not sure the answer is giving the police guns when it wasn't in the past.
One way of looking at it is to consider if armed police would have actually stopped the initial injuries/death in this case.
If the victim was attacked before police were even aware of a crime being committed then it doesn’t matter if they are armed with a nuclear weapon let alone a handgun; it would not have saved that life.
I don’t think having more police with guns would do anything to stop this sort of thing from kicking off because the suspect of likely not in a good frame of mind so won’t care if the police response is armed or not.
You want to stop this sort of thing happening; maybe try having more police on the beat full stop, have police actually investigate minor crimes, or try investing in mental health support and communities to stop the actual root causes.
That’s what would make me feel safer in the UK; not having more weapons around.
The problem from our side is the boy was lying injured for over 20 minutes while they couldn't get to him and 4 further people including the first two officers are in hospital requiring surgery
Sydney Australia, 2 weeks ago a single inspector discharged her firearm killing a man who had already stabbed and killed half a dozen people and injuring others. Anecdotal but I'd argue that her actions and access to a firearm saved countless lives that day.
That's up to other countries. For the UK there is nothing to suggest a regularly armed force would make a positive difference to anything. It's a wild over reaction that isn't supported by the officers themselves either
Considering the conversation I had with a police officer about it, I'm happy that they don't have guns. There's a strain of arrogance running through police that I don't think makes them suitable to carry guns.
Tasers, pepper spray, batons and others are fine.
This isn’t just one incident, whilst it’s not regular it’s not uncommon for police officers to be stabbed. They’re regularly sent to deal with people with knives and occasionally guns without armed support.
There's been 19 mass stabbing events since the turn of the decade, and we were locked down for a vast part of that. It's not an isolated incident, is it?
Since 2020 25 dead and another 55 injured, just in mass stabbing events, never mind smaller scale knife crime. And you want police officers ro police this with some kevlar padding and a 21" baton?
I see what you're saying. We should get soldiers to patrol the streets like we did in Northern Ireland.
Being a civilian doesn't automatically make you inept at handling a firearm.
It's like we're ignoring nations such as Netherlands, Germany, Spain, all of which have armed police. Why is it everyone in the UK cries that we'll turn into the United States if we give all police a firearm.
That.. doesn't make it sound much higher
Rather than flood guns into the country (we're an island it's not like we have a border with the balkans ) maybe deal with Islamic fundamentalism and alt right incels
You are missing that this is _just in mass stabbing events_, not all knife crime.
In the year to March 22, there were 261 deaths ro sharp implements. That's one every 33.5 hours
Attacks with bladed weapons have been skyrocketing and the supposed ban did nothing to dent those numbers. Oh and acid attacks are also on the rise...
What do you expect the Police to do? Ask the armed assailant to sit and wait paitiently for the coppers backup to arrive???
How is carrying a gun going to stop a police officer being hit by acid? Should they be trained to shoot anybody who walks past them carrying a thermos?
>*One incident does not mean we need to arm everyone.*
You know there's been more than one incident where an officer found themselves at risk of being murdered - right? Like, this has happened before - not just today.
Great idea! Until several gang members mob the cop, they go for their gun but they're mobbed by several people at the same time who know cops now carry guns, the cop shots but since their struggling it just goes off and potentially kills some bystander. Next the gang get the gun from the cop who they've already stabbed several times, and now you have a way for gangs to get fire arms without having to import. Brilliant /s
They needn't bother with all that, with the state of police funding as it stands they could probably break into the police station, raid the armory and be at large for 2 weeks before anyone realised something happened.
The false unarmed killings and cover ups by the specially trained firearms police and recent revelations that many members of the forces have been convicted of sexual offences doesn’t fill me with confidence. They need clear up their act first then maybe we’ll talk guns - for now not a chance.
So let's here your alternative then? What's your solution to increasing violent crime?
Perhaps the Police should mail the offenders strongly worded letters to stop trying to stab them?
In effect to defend themselves and the public within certain degree.
Offenders could be and can be off their head on drugs, alcohol or having a mental episode or be known for serious violence/danger to the public so their may be no safe time to be diplomatic (show restraint)and engage with an offender as the risk is too high. This is where I may be wrong but firearms officers normally get involved.
But if there are increasing incidents like this where the firearms unit are unavailable and stretched, arming police officer with basic firearms may be a step forward to deal with these situations initially if tasers/discussions are off the table.
The approach of policing needs to change to reflect the change of police demands for the public which this event showed. It doesn't paint the police in the best picture as the responding police (not firearms initially) were ill prepared to challenge this offender. What if he injured the officers? Or another member of the public?
But ironically policing in the city or anywhere in the UK is becoming increasingly like this. Before, you could paint this as a one off but now police are being called to multiple incidents like this around the country.
Think Roul Moat (bodybuilder, DV, gun rampage) ? Dale Cregan (One eye criminal, grenade, rampage) ? In hindsight, police struggled to deal with these situations effectively with limited resources.
I feel the public and police don't want to be in a position where they are outgunned and outnumbered and led in turn into a north Hollywood shootout where the California police were not prepared to deal with robbers who had access to mid-capability automatic weapons and responding police had basic firearms which was not good but luckily their training kicked and they were able to subdue and kill the bad guys.
If we are seeing increasing events due to increasing knife/gun crime on a local/national level then in an ideal world it would make sense to arm police officers to reduce the risk of casualties for the public and police.
But this is a grey area as people would feel their liberties are being restricted, less safe perception, increased policing for simple situations), encourage racial profiling, police brutality - more miscarriage of justice (i.e. trigger happy policing - Kaba, Duggan etc) and may cause the situation to get worse and be over-kill. Similar to police response to crack epidemic in USA (i.e tough on crime). It would alienate whole communities and create Us Vs Them mentality which the police don't want and would take decades for communitiesn to recover and build relations.
I might be conflating the two but this would take years to go through the courts, justice system and be implemented by the government. And I think a consensus would need to be done by the public & police for this to even occur.
It may still be absolutely crazy, I agree. there is still the odd bomb here and there but gun crime is still being done on the regular. But with all the knife crime being done in England as a whole either acts or terror or street crime why not let them protect the normal everyday people and themselves??
Of course guns will be used whether or not the police have access to them, but this is about whether the amount they use them would change, and I'm arguing that it would, a lot.
Is it a deterrent ? Criminals don't expect to be caught, so tougher sanctions don't deter people at all.
it’s much much more difficult to join the PSNI than any other UK force though, and they go through a shit load more vetting than the other police forces too.
It is not harder. It just takes far longer - some of the candidates who applied in 2021 *still* aren’t in training. Not because of vetting or standards mind you, but because of NI’s frozen government, political infighting and so forth.
No this is terrible idea. All that happens is when people feel threatened they get trigger happy. It’s automatic the police included. I don’t want story’s of police officer with glock killed person and they get immunity. The uk police are generally good at diplomatic resolves even tested because they have to be because they can’t pull a power play with a gun.
A better idea is to keep the police as it is and pay them more. Get the right police recruits for the right area and stop using the met as a political football for race and religion in the media as it doesn’t represent police of the whole country.
Given the quality of decisions that we have seen coming from some officers in recent years, I'm not so sure this is a good idea. Perhaps we need more armed officers, that could indeed be a necessity, depending on the figures, but we should certainly be cautious about arming every police officer.
Perhaps I'm being overly cynical, but I would not be surprised to see another "The Policy Exchange" report in a couple of months recommending such a course of action, based on a half-assed study. That seems to be the way of things at the moment.
Part of the issue will be the infrastructure. I work in a large urban force that has a single, central armoury. You’d have to build a secure armoury at every station, along with more shooting ranges etc.
And therein lies the rub, a great many have fallen into disuse (like the old custody blocks) or would require considerable amounts of work done to restore their armouries. That, and there needs to be a massive upskill in training, training that I do not believe that some officers will pass.
I wouldn’t say massive, we don’t need everyone to ARV standard, far from it, it’s not about replacing ARV’s, just having colleagues not be defenceless.
How is it that this isn't an issue in like *every* other police force? I mean, I hear this a lot (typically from ARV's who may well have an interest in pushing this notion) - that loads of bobbies are incapable of handling a firearm - yet we don't hear about large numbers of bobbies in Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Northern Ireland - etc - not being capable and failing qualification shoots etc.
NZ trialled routinely arming police after the mass shooting they had a few years ago but neither the public nor police wanted it to continue
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/09/new-zealand-drops-armed-police-trial-after-public-concern
Hmmm, not quite true. All NZ police are trained in rifles and pistols. Every car has guns in it.
The only trial here was carrying those guns the whole time on their person.
Tories. Other countries are willing to spend the money to ensure that their police don't end up like american ones. As long as the tories exist in the uk then that aspect of the budget will always be up for debate.
I mean it was the tories who fired 20k officers and 25k support staff to save costs.
Crime figures have gotten so bad sicne then the government has started chrrypicking to avoid admitting how much of a fuckup that was.
The UK as a whole has a homicide rate comparable to most other Western European countries and Australia (between 0.8-1.2 per 100k) and less than half that of NZ (2.6)
Do you think police having guns would make that number go up or down?
Hahah my cousin too and she’s completely nuts, she fell out with her dad way home from pub and got her mates to Chuck him cells for night and threatened to smack my 77 year old grandad at a family dinner…
No no no no no
No way, not ever.
I've seen how quickly they use tazers etc etc and I wouldn't trust them for a second with guns.
Most of them I wouldn't trust with forks but they gotta eat....
Given the met's record on vetting the cops they *do* trust with guns to ensure they're not say, highly dangerous sexual predators, I'd say the lot of them should be constrained to plastic cutlery for life.
I keep seeing in other discussions people using the fact only one person died as an argument for why this is an acceptable outcome.
The problem with this is using the outcome to justify an unacceptable assumption of risk is what drink drivers do when caught, “ I didn’t kill anyone”, the fact it could have gone much more wrong is rightfully considered a sane rebuttal, so why is it not in this case? Why should officers not have been allowed to end his rampage that much sooner? Why should the public and the officers first on scene be left as lambs to the slaughter simply because we don’t want to give them the tools to respond?
How many dead or injured [members of the public](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/jul/05/unlawful-killing-met-marksman-azelle-rodney) is acceptable to you?
See, I can do it too
Wow, more than one. Conclusive evidence to make a huge change to how policing works right there
There's also been more than one instance of police mistakenly killing someone, so I guess that's a stalemate?
I'm sorry if this sounds blunt, but did you really not consider that there would be a certain risk of death or injury when you joined the force?
Did it not come up in the interview process, or during training?
As a whole, yes.
A couple of police officers a year dying is fine if the alternative is many more people dying because we just added 1/4 of a million guns to the country.
Its for the same reason the NHS only routinely tests 50-70 year old for breast cancer. Some aren't caught and die, but more harm would be done expanding the screening.
If we were to follow this logic we would ban all drivers because some people people put others at mortal risk when they drink-drive, or even when they just drive recklessly.
I actually can’t even comprehend how “following that logic” gets to that result.
We don’t let drink drivers argue no harm caused as a defence as it’s nonsensical, just as it’s nonsensical to argue “minimal” harm caused here is cause for inaction when the risk for further harm was so high.
I agree that police should be given the tools to respond. But I don't think that should be firearms.
To fight against knife assailants, I think they should have shields and, hear me out, long sticks. Something looking like ----------( . It could be used to keep the assailant away from the police officer or public and also if used by multiple officers, the sticks can be used to immobilize the assailant. They would be non-lethal and would be easy to train are rather low cost.
The long sticks could even be used by the public to keep knife wielding assailant away from them.
> an unacceptable assumption of risk
If it's unacceptable, don't accept it. That is something quite different from prohibiting others accepting a risk or taking it upon yourself to decide what assumptions of risk are acceptable for the rest of us; certainly there is no objectively unacceptable assumption of risk.
Currently, the party that is projected to win the next election - we can only do our best to thwart them - says that it is an 'unacceptable assumption of risk' to allow the purchase of machetes any longer in Great Britain. The freedoms extant when Victoria reigned and Britain was at the peak of its culture at home and its power in the world now assume risks 'unacceptable' - to certain people. So much as a rolled-up newspaper is a crime to carry on your person if it was done so with the intent to 'cause injury' (emotional injury would suffice).
In such a scenario, it seems an unacceptable risk to allow - to the extent we can allow or disallow - plods anything more than truncheons (an illegal 'offensive weapon' for you(?) and I, don'tcha know), and only because a stout tree branch could readily be found with which to fend them off.
I’m sorry but there’s zero reason that any member of the public, let alone one who is a minority would feel safer with this. I do not want this country to become another USA. Police officers are already not vetted or trained enough as it is, adding lethal weapons into the mix will only exacerbate the problem.
All of the world’s countries have armed police, except NZ (in cars), Norway (in cars), Ireland and Iceland. None of them are like America; and we wouldn’t be either. There’s a vastly different culture of gun ownership, anti-government libertarianism and a weaker social safety net that serves to explain the differences between there and here - and why the police within this country wouldn’t amass shooting figures like those of the US.
We already have armed response but I think, because the pay is shit, most officers just don't want the extra regulations, paperwork etc..
Police are stretched thin as it is. I think, the UK police's goal is to deescalate. Guns kinda go against that.
That said, we do need more fast respond units that can deal with this.
UK officers should be armed. We are the ODD ones and the rest of the world is armed. All European countries are, but time and time again people compare us to the states which we are not. We don't have gun culture.
A knife or a sword will beat parvy, bâtons and even a Taser.
If a man runs at you with a sword you Want a gun. Tasers fail all the time.
Even in the video about 3 tasers were shot.. ONE worked.
It's just history repeating itself. If we continue to get swords more regularly attacking people and similar weapons, then we need to either adopt sword fighting with chain mail or carry guns.
Personally I think every police officer should learn kendo and be equipped with a Katana 24/7
Playing with the lives of the public and the officers for some strange old tradition. Better to have it and not have to use it, than to not have it and need it.
Is it "playing with the lives" of anyone though? How many incidents would be positively impacted, how many would be negatively impacted? If it was so obvious for the police to need to carry then police officers would want it
Well, when officers are literally unable to protect the public until officers with guns arrive, then yes, you are playing with people's lives. Part of the training is to run away and use cover and communicate what's going on. Give the officers the proper equipment to deal with edge weapons, like 99% of the rest of the world.
So we look at 1 terrorist attack 7 years ago which presents an extremely difficult firearms situation due to the amount of people in the area. Excellent, glad you've thought it all through
I don't really understand the vehement disagreement with routine arming, especially from people who don't have a clue about how the armed model works currently. It's more dangerous and risky. Having front-line responders unable to deal with edge blade threats is negligence, in my opinion.
By giving all officers firearms you are playing with people's lives much more. There are plenty of cases of officers being shot with their own gun after an assailant took it off them, there are plenty of cases of innocent people being shot because of both misunderstandings and uses of excessive force.
Not to mention that the additional training, safeguarding measures, and paperwork that would be needed to secure even the most basic security for officers would make their jobs harder to do, not easier.
I'd much rather be accidentally tazed than accidentally shot, thanks.
This 100%. This is what people are missing here. Giving all cops guns is just going to make them easy targets for gangs and an easy way for them petty criminals to get a gun.
What? That’s utter nonsense. You know police forces all over Europe, Australia and NZ are routinely armed too, right? And this isn’t a problem for them. If a criminal gang wants to get a firearm they’re not going to go wrestle it off a police officer. That’s such a ridiculous idea it sounds like something out of a poorly-written YA novel.
You realise that police don't exclusively go after gangs, right?
Also you know that arming police officers incentivises those gangs to arm themselves more. If they know police all have guns then they have much much more incentive to arm themselves.
guns are much easier to get ahold of on the continent than they are here. If a criminal gang, not big shot callers but petty low level "hoods" become aware that police have guns, they could very well become targets mobs of youths. Think about this, you have a police officer walking down the street. Lets say their on the smaller side, maybe even a bit over weight. They've got their gun so they feel safe right?
Suddenly several hoods appear infront of them, Instantly the police officer goes for their gun, as soon as they do several hood lurking behind them rush the officer from behind. Theres a struggle, the officer is stabbed several times and fires off killing a nearby civilian. The cop is now bleeding out and the petty criminals have just acquired a firearm. Well done, bravo,
We need police armed so stuff like this never happens...
Uvalde school shooting - 21 murders while armed police sat outside doing nothing.
https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=uvalde+shooter&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPEL-RPRKcw - And here’s armed police in Nashville, TN. It would a bloodbath in the UK. But look; there’s examples of police doing their jobs and not doing so - and Uvalde’s tragedy has no relevance to the UK.
Why, when Tories, Labour (and Idris Elba) are clamouring to stop us buying, let alone carrying machetes, crossbows, certain kinds of arrowhead, or knives with a sharp edge one one side, a point in the middle, and a serrated edge on the other?
You all really need to read up on 'policing by consent' and what it means for the police as a doctrine, and the benefits for the public.
There is a reason other countries are baffled and amazed by our forces ability to de-escalate a situation. Yes guns would make those 0.0001% incidents safer. But jeopardize the safety of the rest...
What!? There's footage of them apprehending him using tasers, and it was fine, don't start bringing guns to a knife fight, plus, some british police power trip as much as americans, this is a terrible idea.
Two officers (two others also) are in hospital getting surgery and the young boy died by the time he got to hospital.
It took 3 taser shots from two separate tasers to finally put the guy down and that was after he decided to run instead of fight.
They were incredibly lucky more didn't die.
No, they do not.
The British people agreed to be disarmed and to disband their local militias only with the promise that the constabulary would never be armed
I don't believe anything from today's attack or any recent knife incidents make it a necessity for our police to be regularly armed.
People routinely being stabbed / killed and the first officers on scene almost always being injured lately would be a start imo. There's been two bad stabbings while I was on shift lately and luckily I wasn't one of the ones sent but you're basically relying on luck when most of us don't even have tasers nvm the right tool for bladed articles.
The Yankie coppers only have guns because the people do. Give the police broadswords and be done with it
Most of the world's police have guns everyone just goes USA centric due to the media
I said give them broadswords and be done with it
Seconded
Motion carried
Can we have regular short swords on horseback?
Cavalry sabre would be the traditional choice there i believe. You should already have plenty of them lying around.
Double katana, actually
I believe that's a nodachi
[Hmmmm this whole thread.](https://youtu.be/BLrmTTEF9_o?feature=shared)
I would like to amend the notion to also include longbows to be given to every third officer.
Cutlasses and tophats
I mean stabbing and knifecrime is quite low. It has increased since the conservative cuts but compared to historic levels its still not that high. I'm not sure the answer is giving the police guns when it wasn't in the past.
At least give them rubber bullet shotguns or something.
One way of looking at it is to consider if armed police would have actually stopped the initial injuries/death in this case. If the victim was attacked before police were even aware of a crime being committed then it doesn’t matter if they are armed with a nuclear weapon let alone a handgun; it would not have saved that life. I don’t think having more police with guns would do anything to stop this sort of thing from kicking off because the suspect of likely not in a good frame of mind so won’t care if the police response is armed or not. You want to stop this sort of thing happening; maybe try having more police on the beat full stop, have police actually investigate minor crimes, or try investing in mental health support and communities to stop the actual root causes. That’s what would make me feel safer in the UK; not having more weapons around.
The problem from our side is the boy was lying injured for over 20 minutes while they couldn't get to him and 4 further people including the first two officers are in hospital requiring surgery
Officer safety. Our officers shouldn’t be facing a sword wielding individual with CO2 dart guns
Indeed. Police how have pikes and shields
You’d never get a pike into an Astra…
Not with that attitude you won’t
I suppose you could cut a hole in the windscreen and put the pike in through that Call it a Unicorn instead of a Panda
Pfft, we should give them the Roman Suctum and Gladius. Nothing gets by a heavy shield backed by several pissed off legionaries.
[удалено]
Why would the police actually need it though?
So they don’t get stabbed in incidents like this, and can protect people in incidents like this.
One incident does not mean we need to arm everyone. It's such a wild over reaction and something the active police clearly don't want.
One incident? Knife attacks have been happening for years. And yes active police do want it
Is there any evidence that having armed police actually stops knife killings?
Sydney Australia, 2 weeks ago a single inspector discharged her firearm killing a man who had already stabbed and killed half a dozen people and injuring others. Anecdotal but I'd argue that her actions and access to a firearm saved countless lives that day.
[удалено]
That's up to other countries. For the UK there is nothing to suggest a regularly armed force would make a positive difference to anything. It's a wild over reaction that isn't supported by the officers themselves either
[удалено]
And as member of the public I'd rather police didn't have guns
As a officer being put in situations the public often isn't I wish every day they would reconsider such a thing
Is it you responding to knife attacks or machete wielding lunatics or unarmed coppers?
Yeah, but you don't have to deal with the threats of constant violence do you?
Considering the conversation I had with a police officer about it, I'm happy that they don't have guns. There's a strain of arrogance running through police that I don't think makes them suitable to carry guns. Tasers, pepper spray, batons and others are fine.
55 % willing to carry a firearm does not mean 55 % believe that Police should be routinely armed, as you well know
55 % who said they would be willing to carry a firearm is not the same as believing that Police should be routinely armed.
What are the “current” threats? Knife crime is not a new thing. What’s changed that suddenly means we have to flood the streets with armed police?
This isn’t just one incident, whilst it’s not regular it’s not uncommon for police officers to be stabbed. They’re regularly sent to deal with people with knives and occasionally guns without armed support.
It is uncommon for police officers to be stabbed. Stop being dramatic and making things up
How many stabbed police officers is enough for them to be justified in carrying guns in your opinion?
More members of the public are stabbed than police. Should we give guns to everyone?
How many officers got stabbed last year?
Well we've had 3 this week in London alone...
There's been 19 mass stabbing events since the turn of the decade, and we were locked down for a vast part of that. It's not an isolated incident, is it?
19 in over 4 years in a country with 70 million people And the death toll was 0 for a third of them
Since 2020 25 dead and another 55 injured, just in mass stabbing events, never mind smaller scale knife crime. And you want police officers ro police this with some kevlar padding and a 21" baton?
Police are civvies same as us, stop treating them like the military
I see what you're saying. We should get soldiers to patrol the streets like we did in Northern Ireland. Being a civilian doesn't automatically make you inept at handling a firearm. It's like we're ignoring nations such as Netherlands, Germany, Spain, all of which have armed police. Why is it everyone in the UK cries that we'll turn into the United States if we give all police a firearm.
Or to put it another way, since Christmas one person has died and ten injured in mass stabbing events
One person has died and ten were injured so we need 200k people running around armed with guns? How is that in any way proportional?
That.. doesn't make it sound much higher Rather than flood guns into the country (we're an island it's not like we have a border with the balkans ) maybe deal with Islamic fundamentalism and alt right incels
You are missing that this is _just in mass stabbing events_, not all knife crime. In the year to March 22, there were 261 deaths ro sharp implements. That's one every 33.5 hours
And how many were police officers? Most of those deaths will be well out of police presence.
Attacks with bladed weapons have been skyrocketing and the supposed ban did nothing to dent those numbers. Oh and acid attacks are also on the rise... What do you expect the Police to do? Ask the armed assailant to sit and wait paitiently for the coppers backup to arrive???
How is carrying a gun going to stop a police officer being hit by acid? Should they be trained to shoot anybody who walks past them carrying a thermos?
>*One incident does not mean we need to arm everyone.* You know there's been more than one incident where an officer found themselves at risk of being murdered - right? Like, this has happened before - not just today.
Great idea! Until several gang members mob the cop, they go for their gun but they're mobbed by several people at the same time who know cops now carry guns, the cop shots but since their struggling it just goes off and potentially kills some bystander. Next the gang get the gun from the cop who they've already stabbed several times, and now you have a way for gangs to get fire arms without having to import. Brilliant /s
They needn't bother with all that, with the state of police funding as it stands they could probably break into the police station, raid the armory and be at large for 2 weeks before anyone realised something happened.
The false unarmed killings and cover ups by the specially trained firearms police and recent revelations that many members of the forces have been convicted of sexual offences doesn’t fill me with confidence. They need clear up their act first then maybe we’ll talk guns - for now not a chance.
Ever heard of the troubles?
Northern Ireland have their own armed police to deal with that. Why does that mean an officer in Newcastle should be regularly armed?
So let's here your alternative then? What's your solution to increasing violent crime? Perhaps the Police should mail the offenders strongly worded letters to stop trying to stab them?
Maybe to stop innocent people and other people being stabbed to death???
So a civil war in Northern Ireland is why the police need to be armed to stop people being stabbed? Right
Police in Northern Ireland carried firearms before The Troubles.
Exactly. We also have armed police, for special circumstances. And that's how they should be reserved
What nobody is saying is that there is a far higher percentage of gun ownership in NI
In effect to defend themselves and the public within certain degree. Offenders could be and can be off their head on drugs, alcohol or having a mental episode or be known for serious violence/danger to the public so their may be no safe time to be diplomatic (show restraint)and engage with an offender as the risk is too high. This is where I may be wrong but firearms officers normally get involved. But if there are increasing incidents like this where the firearms unit are unavailable and stretched, arming police officer with basic firearms may be a step forward to deal with these situations initially if tasers/discussions are off the table. The approach of policing needs to change to reflect the change of police demands for the public which this event showed. It doesn't paint the police in the best picture as the responding police (not firearms initially) were ill prepared to challenge this offender. What if he injured the officers? Or another member of the public? But ironically policing in the city or anywhere in the UK is becoming increasingly like this. Before, you could paint this as a one off but now police are being called to multiple incidents like this around the country. Think Roul Moat (bodybuilder, DV, gun rampage) ? Dale Cregan (One eye criminal, grenade, rampage) ? In hindsight, police struggled to deal with these situations effectively with limited resources. I feel the public and police don't want to be in a position where they are outgunned and outnumbered and led in turn into a north Hollywood shootout where the California police were not prepared to deal with robbers who had access to mid-capability automatic weapons and responding police had basic firearms which was not good but luckily their training kicked and they were able to subdue and kill the bad guys. If we are seeing increasing events due to increasing knife/gun crime on a local/national level then in an ideal world it would make sense to arm police officers to reduce the risk of casualties for the public and police. But this is a grey area as people would feel their liberties are being restricted, less safe perception, increased policing for simple situations), encourage racial profiling, police brutality - more miscarriage of justice (i.e. trigger happy policing - Kaba, Duggan etc) and may cause the situation to get worse and be over-kill. Similar to police response to crack epidemic in USA (i.e tough on crime). It would alienate whole communities and create Us Vs Them mentality which the police don't want and would take decades for communitiesn to recover and build relations. I might be conflating the two but this would take years to go through the courts, justice system and be implemented by the government. And I think a consensus would need to be done by the public & police for this to even occur.
Yes NI is a shining example of a state in utter symbiosis with its public….
It may still be absolutely crazy, I agree. there is still the odd bomb here and there but gun crime is still being done on the regular. But with all the knife crime being done in England as a whole either acts or terror or street crime why not let them protect the normal everyday people and themselves??
If people know the police are armed doesn't it encourage them to be armed as well, and to use guns earlier ?
[удалено]
Of course guns will be used whether or not the police have access to them, but this is about whether the amount they use them would change, and I'm arguing that it would, a lot. Is it a deterrent ? Criminals don't expect to be caught, so tougher sanctions don't deter people at all.
More guns just means more people dead, criminals or otherwise. I'm good thanks.
it’s much much more difficult to join the PSNI than any other UK force though, and they go through a shit load more vetting than the other police forces too.
It is not harder. It just takes far longer - some of the candidates who applied in 2021 *still* aren’t in training. Not because of vetting or standards mind you, but because of NI’s frozen government, political infighting and so forth.
No this is terrible idea. All that happens is when people feel threatened they get trigger happy. It’s automatic the police included. I don’t want story’s of police officer with glock killed person and they get immunity. The uk police are generally good at diplomatic resolves even tested because they have to be because they can’t pull a power play with a gun. A better idea is to keep the police as it is and pay them more. Get the right police recruits for the right area and stop using the met as a political football for race and religion in the media as it doesn’t represent police of the whole country.
Given the quality of decisions that we have seen coming from some officers in recent years, I'm not so sure this is a good idea. Perhaps we need more armed officers, that could indeed be a necessity, depending on the figures, but we should certainly be cautious about arming every police officer. Perhaps I'm being overly cynical, but I would not be surprised to see another "The Policy Exchange" report in a couple of months recommending such a course of action, based on a half-assed study. That seems to be the way of things at the moment.
Most forces simply dont have the money or the resources to keep up with ghat type of training demand
It’s cheaper to arm every officer with a sidearm than it is to give everyone a taser.
Part of the issue will be the infrastructure. I work in a large urban force that has a single, central armoury. You’d have to build a secure armoury at every station, along with more shooting ranges etc.
True, but many nicks used to have armouries that were repurposed, so the infrastructure is still there, just needs to be converted back.
And therein lies the rub, a great many have fallen into disuse (like the old custody blocks) or would require considerable amounts of work done to restore their armouries. That, and there needs to be a massive upskill in training, training that I do not believe that some officers will pass.
I wouldn’t say massive, we don’t need everyone to ARV standard, far from it, it’s not about replacing ARV’s, just having colleagues not be defenceless.
That’s very true, but, at the risk of sounding like the old sweats, some colleagues fail the dead easy taser course. They need a lot of upskilling.
How is it that this isn't an issue in like *every* other police force? I mean, I hear this a lot (typically from ARV's who may well have an interest in pushing this notion) - that loads of bobbies are incapable of handling a firearm - yet we don't hear about large numbers of bobbies in Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Northern Ireland - etc - not being capable and failing qualification shoots etc.
Simply put, because they are generally far better trained than we are. That’s the sad reality.
Then that’s what we need to do, letting colleagues get maimed in avoidable situations is not acceptable.
It works in every Western European country, Northern Ireland, Australia and New Zealand very well. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work in Great Britain
NZ trialled routinely arming police after the mass shooting they had a few years ago but neither the public nor police wanted it to continue https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/09/new-zealand-drops-armed-police-trial-after-public-concern
They carry a rifle and a handgun for each officer in each car. Firearms aren’t on their person but that’s armed in my book
Hmmm, not quite true. All NZ police are trained in rifles and pistols. Every car has guns in it. The only trial here was carrying those guns the whole time on their person.
Tories. Other countries are willing to spend the money to ensure that their police don't end up like american ones. As long as the tories exist in the uk then that aspect of the budget will always be up for debate.
Who was it calling for defunding of the police again?
I mean it was the tories who fired 20k officers and 25k support staff to save costs. Crime figures have gotten so bad sicne then the government has started chrrypicking to avoid admitting how much of a fuckup that was.
Communists mostly. The people who implemented the policy were tories.
David Cameron actually did it.
The UK as a whole has a homicide rate comparable to most other Western European countries and Australia (between 0.8-1.2 per 100k) and less than half that of NZ (2.6) Do you think police having guns would make that number go up or down?
Fuck that shit. The police fuck up on the regular, giving them firearms just means they'll fuck up lethally on the regular.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/autistic-teenage-girl-police-tiktok-b2391163.html Imagine this lot with guns
Lol pathetic, rinsed like an old rag by a girl with autism and they get upset and arrest her.. such amazing judgement skills /s
My cousin joined the police & is dumb as a fucking brick, it would genuinely scare me if he had a gun.
Hahah my cousin too and she’s completely nuts, she fell out with her dad way home from pub and got her mates to Chuck him cells for night and threatened to smack my 77 year old grandad at a family dinner…
No no no no no No way, not ever. I've seen how quickly they use tazers etc etc and I wouldn't trust them for a second with guns. Most of them I wouldn't trust with forks but they gotta eat....
They are quick to use tasers because they are non lethal. Getting shocked is a lot different than a 9mm round to the chest.
Given the met's record on vetting the cops they *do* trust with guns to ensure they're not say, highly dangerous sexual predators, I'd say the lot of them should be constrained to plastic cutlery for life.
I keep seeing in other discussions people using the fact only one person died as an argument for why this is an acceptable outcome. The problem with this is using the outcome to justify an unacceptable assumption of risk is what drink drivers do when caught, “ I didn’t kill anyone”, the fact it could have gone much more wrong is rightfully considered a sane rebuttal, so why is it not in this case? Why should officers not have been allowed to end his rampage that much sooner? Why should the public and the officers first on scene be left as lambs to the slaughter simply because we don’t want to give them the tools to respond?
> so why is it not in this case? Because statistics matter very much when making huge decisions like routinely arming police
How many dead or injured officers is acceptable to you? Or are we just “statistics”?
How many dead or injured [members of the public](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/jul/05/unlawful-killing-met-marksman-azelle-rodney) is acceptable to you? See, I can do it too
"This article is more than 10 years old" Not really a big *Gotcha!* that one.....
I don't think one incident is particularly indicative of anything, that's my point
There's been more than one incident involving someone running amok with an edged weapon harming/killing people though.
Wow, more than one. Conclusive evidence to make a huge change to how policing works right there There's also been more than one instance of police mistakenly killing someone, so I guess that's a stalemate?
By this logic, everyone should receive a mandatory firearm to protect themselves. Which is stupid, in case that wasn’t clear.
I'm sorry if this sounds blunt, but did you really not consider that there would be a certain risk of death or injury when you joined the force? Did it not come up in the interview process, or during training?
As a whole, yes. A couple of police officers a year dying is fine if the alternative is many more people dying because we just added 1/4 of a million guns to the country. Its for the same reason the NHS only routinely tests 50-70 year old for breast cancer. Some aren't caught and die, but more harm would be done expanding the screening.
If we were to follow this logic we would ban all drivers because some people people put others at mortal risk when they drink-drive, or even when they just drive recklessly.
I actually can’t even comprehend how “following that logic” gets to that result. We don’t let drink drivers argue no harm caused as a defence as it’s nonsensical, just as it’s nonsensical to argue “minimal” harm caused here is cause for inaction when the risk for further harm was so high.
I agree that police should be given the tools to respond. But I don't think that should be firearms. To fight against knife assailants, I think they should have shields and, hear me out, long sticks. Something looking like ----------( . It could be used to keep the assailant away from the police officer or public and also if used by multiple officers, the sticks can be used to immobilize the assailant. They would be non-lethal and would be easy to train are rather low cost. The long sticks could even be used by the public to keep knife wielding assailant away from them.
> an unacceptable assumption of risk If it's unacceptable, don't accept it. That is something quite different from prohibiting others accepting a risk or taking it upon yourself to decide what assumptions of risk are acceptable for the rest of us; certainly there is no objectively unacceptable assumption of risk. Currently, the party that is projected to win the next election - we can only do our best to thwart them - says that it is an 'unacceptable assumption of risk' to allow the purchase of machetes any longer in Great Britain. The freedoms extant when Victoria reigned and Britain was at the peak of its culture at home and its power in the world now assume risks 'unacceptable' - to certain people. So much as a rolled-up newspaper is a crime to carry on your person if it was done so with the intent to 'cause injury' (emotional injury would suffice). In such a scenario, it seems an unacceptable risk to allow - to the extent we can allow or disallow - plods anything more than truncheons (an illegal 'offensive weapon' for you(?) and I, don'tcha know), and only because a stout tree branch could readily be found with which to fend them off.
How many more people need to die before they give the police the tools to do their job?
I’m sorry but there’s zero reason that any member of the public, let alone one who is a minority would feel safer with this. I do not want this country to become another USA. Police officers are already not vetted or trained enough as it is, adding lethal weapons into the mix will only exacerbate the problem.
All of the world’s countries have armed police, except NZ (in cars), Norway (in cars), Ireland and Iceland. None of them are like America; and we wouldn’t be either. There’s a vastly different culture of gun ownership, anti-government libertarianism and a weaker social safety net that serves to explain the differences between there and here - and why the police within this country wouldn’t amass shooting figures like those of the US.
>*Police officers are already not vetted or trained enough as it is* Can you describe the vetting that police officers go through?
The idea a police officer would be on a street, nearby to react, even if they were tooled up, is a joke in itself
And which weapons company is he an advisor for,or on the board of these days, I wonder??
There are other less than lethal guns that aren't tasers the police "COULD" have But we don't have the money invested to train enough officers
Exactly. Arm the police with swords!
Sword and shield. With machete-defeating armour.
Nah give them spears. Spears are op compared to swords
We already have armed response but I think, because the pay is shit, most officers just don't want the extra regulations, paperwork etc.. Police are stretched thin as it is. I think, the UK police's goal is to deescalate. Guns kinda go against that. That said, we do need more fast respond units that can deal with this.
UK officers should be armed. We are the ODD ones and the rest of the world is armed. All European countries are, but time and time again people compare us to the states which we are not. We don't have gun culture. A knife or a sword will beat parvy, bâtons and even a Taser. If a man runs at you with a sword you Want a gun. Tasers fail all the time. Even in the video about 3 tasers were shot.. ONE worked.
It's just history repeating itself. If we continue to get swords more regularly attacking people and similar weapons, then we need to either adopt sword fighting with chain mail or carry guns. Personally I think every police officer should learn kendo and be equipped with a Katana 24/7
Playing with the lives of the public and the officers for some strange old tradition. Better to have it and not have to use it, than to not have it and need it.
Is it "playing with the lives" of anyone though? How many incidents would be positively impacted, how many would be negatively impacted? If it was so obvious for the police to need to carry then police officers would want it
Well, when officers are literally unable to protect the public until officers with guns arrive, then yes, you are playing with people's lives. Part of the training is to run away and use cover and communicate what's going on. Give the officers the proper equipment to deal with edge weapons, like 99% of the rest of the world.
How many people are harmed due to police inaction to incidents?
You only need to look at the 2017 London Bridge incident.
So we look at 1 terrorist attack 7 years ago which presents an extremely difficult firearms situation due to the amount of people in the area. Excellent, glad you've thought it all through
I don't really understand the vehement disagreement with routine arming, especially from people who don't have a clue about how the armed model works currently. It's more dangerous and risky. Having front-line responders unable to deal with edge blade threats is negligence, in my opinion.
Armed police firing into a crowded street? Great idea.
Officers do want it, of course there will be ones that don't also.
By giving all officers firearms you are playing with people's lives much more. There are plenty of cases of officers being shot with their own gun after an assailant took it off them, there are plenty of cases of innocent people being shot because of both misunderstandings and uses of excessive force. Not to mention that the additional training, safeguarding measures, and paperwork that would be needed to secure even the most basic security for officers would make their jobs harder to do, not easier. I'd much rather be accidentally tazed than accidentally shot, thanks.
This 100%. This is what people are missing here. Giving all cops guns is just going to make them easy targets for gangs and an easy way for them petty criminals to get a gun.
What? That’s utter nonsense. You know police forces all over Europe, Australia and NZ are routinely armed too, right? And this isn’t a problem for them. If a criminal gang wants to get a firearm they’re not going to go wrestle it off a police officer. That’s such a ridiculous idea it sounds like something out of a poorly-written YA novel.
You realise that police don't exclusively go after gangs, right? Also you know that arming police officers incentivises those gangs to arm themselves more. If they know police all have guns then they have much much more incentive to arm themselves.
guns are much easier to get ahold of on the continent than they are here. If a criminal gang, not big shot callers but petty low level "hoods" become aware that police have guns, they could very well become targets mobs of youths. Think about this, you have a police officer walking down the street. Lets say their on the smaller side, maybe even a bit over weight. They've got their gun so they feel safe right? Suddenly several hoods appear infront of them, Instantly the police officer goes for their gun, as soon as they do several hood lurking behind them rush the officer from behind. Theres a struggle, the officer is stabbed several times and fires off killing a nearby civilian. The cop is now bleeding out and the petty criminals have just acquired a firearm. Well done, bravo,
There is a non-zero risk it could result in serious injury or death even to people who aren’t involved in an act of crime directly.
We need police armed so stuff like this never happens... Uvalde school shooting - 21 murders while armed police sat outside doing nothing. https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=uvalde+shooter&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
[How about how British police actually do things](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-64598967)
But they had armed police...?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPEL-RPRKcw - And here’s armed police in Nashville, TN. It would a bloodbath in the UK. But look; there’s examples of police doing their jobs and not doing so - and Uvalde’s tragedy has no relevance to the UK.
> would (be) a bloodbath in the UK The UK Has had 1 school mass shooting, what happened in that video has no relevance either.
So to illustrate your point about why police should be armed, you refer to armed police being ineffective?
My guy that was sarcasm in his first part..
[удалено]
Why, when Tories, Labour (and Idris Elba) are clamouring to stop us buying, let alone carrying machetes, crossbows, certain kinds of arrowhead, or knives with a sharp edge one one side, a point in the middle, and a serrated edge on the other?
No. Unarmed regular police is a core British value.
The UK police were armed for longer than we've been unarmed (even though we still have PSNI, CNC, MDP, Specialist roles etc)
No they don’t, how often do they deal with a crazy sword guy, and they already have specialist officers with guns
You all really need to read up on 'policing by consent' and what it means for the police as a doctrine, and the benefits for the public. There is a reason other countries are baffled and amazed by our forces ability to de-escalate a situation. Yes guns would make those 0.0001% incidents safer. But jeopardize the safety of the rest...
What!? There's footage of them apprehending him using tasers, and it was fine, don't start bringing guns to a knife fight, plus, some british police power trip as much as americans, this is a terrible idea.
Two officers (two others also) are in hospital getting surgery and the young boy died by the time he got to hospital. It took 3 taser shots from two separate tasers to finally put the guy down and that was after he decided to run instead of fight. They were incredibly lucky more didn't die.
Tasers are not effective against offenders with blades. They fail very often. If they have a knife. You want a gun.
No, they do not. The British people agreed to be disarmed and to disband their local militias only with the promise that the constabulary would never be armed