• Should every police officer be armed?
    134 replies, posted
I believe they should be armed with tasers. It disables but does not kill the criminal/threat. It has been known to kill but it's better to kill few than to give guns until there is a better solution. The problem is if the threat is armed with a gun, I believe if the suspect is known to have a firearm then police should arrive with guns but if it's something like a knife or a bat then they should only resort to using the taser.
Crime is nearly non-existent in Switzerland for a reason. Every man's drafted, every family has a gun at their home, and when brutality reports come up, usually people fight back and are allowed too. Switzerland is why every cop, and person, should have a gun if they deserve it.
I don't know how it is over in the UK but in the US if you call the cops saying "there's a man with a gun on my property" that man could've shot you, your dog, your neighbor, and taken everyone's money and jewelry before the cops show up. Best way to do it is to arm all the level-headed citizens. [editline]5th November 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Vintage Thatguy;38298985]I believe they should be armed with tasers. It disables but does not kill the criminal/threat. It has been known to kill but it's better to kill few than to give guns until there is a better solution. The problem is if the threat is armed with a gun, I believe if the suspect is known to have a firearm then police should arrive with guns but if it's something like a knife or a bat then they should only resort to using the taser.[/QUOTE] Why not just give the cop both? Handguns are easily concealable, an angry man with a bat or a knife could easily be sporting a firearm without anyone, including the cop, knowing until it's too late.
[QUOTE=JaegerMonster;38099119]Uh correct me if I'm wrong But wasn't there a period of time recently where you guys had armed police actively patrolling certain sections of london? I don't imagine that is done out of the blue just for shits and giggles.[/QUOTE] they do around tourist attractions, I've seen it myself in ~2009 (maybe in the wake of the terror attacks), british police walking around with MP5s. french do similar with their military in transportation hubs (Though it isn't the police), chinese do it with armed cops (though it was a shotgun so it could've been loaded with beanbags or something similar)
[QUOTE=viper720666;38334944]I don't know how it is over in the UK but in the US if you call the cops saying "there's a man with a gun on my property" that man could've shot you, your dog, your neighbor, and taken everyone's money and jewelry before the cops show up. Best way to do it is to arm all the level-headed citizens. [/quote] The thing is though because using a gun in the UK carries such a large sentence (even selling a gun can get you a life sentence) not many people would risk it for some petty cash and jewellery. Most crimes involving guns are well organised and not on random family homes
[QUOTE=matt.ant;38345051]The thing is though because using a gun in the UK carries such a large sentence (even selling a gun can get you a life sentence) not many people would risk it for some petty cash and jewellery. Most crimes involving guns are well organised and not on random family homes[/QUOTE] While this is a true statement, what if it's a crazy man with a big knife? What if he's on some wild drugs and a tazer is not sufficient enough? There's just too many variables that could occur where a loaded gun would mean the difference between life and death of the innocent.
[QUOTE=trotskygrad;38344989]they do around tourist attractions, I've seen it myself in ~2009 (maybe in the wake of the terror attacks), british police walking around with MP5s. french do similar with their military in transportation hubs (Though it isn't the police), chinese do it with armed cops (though it was a shotgun so it could've been loaded with beanbags or something similar)[/QUOTE] We do still have a armed police presence in certain areas of London. Especially embassies, the Houses of Commons/ Lords, you know, all the big places people are likely to try and attack. But a lot of the police just patrolling are unarmed and perfectly capable of doing their jobs even somewhere like London.
If the officers are disciplined enough, I don't see why it should be a problem. However, we are human, and we do make some stupid mistakes. I read somewhere that a police officer shot a man in a wheel chair that had somehow cornered him because he was going to try to stab him with a pen. The officer could have easily avoided this to the point where he didn't even have to be cornered. Not to mention, even if he was cornered, a taser would have done the job just fine. He didn't have to shoot him and end up killing him. So yes, I do think there should be some sort of restriction to carrying guns. It could be as simple as not giving them one until they've proven themselves disciplined enough to carry a gun. On the other hand, I believe all officers should carry some sort of self-defense weapon such as a taser.
In my honest opinion, everyone should be allowed any firearms they wish, just on the grounds that there is no correlation whatsoever between gun laws and crime rates. I'd much rather have a gun and not need it, blah blah blah. Switzerland has extremely relaxed gun laws, yet a very low crime rate. The US has relaxed gun laws, but a borderline third world crime rate. The UK has strict gun laws, and a low crime rate. South Korea has extremely strict gun laws, yet a very high crime rate. There's really no correlation between them. On the argument of need, no-one needs cars that go over 70mph, no-one needs iPads or iWastemymoney either, but we don't ban it. TL;DR, no correlation so I'd rather have 'muh freedums
I would agree, in my opinion there should be countries with and without different law systems and enforcement, and people should choose if they want to live in a country with armed officers or death penalty's. Bread Dog: Criminals would just get illegal rifles anyway. It's really hard to find a (Lethal) gun without having a license in the UK, and if the police carried guns around I am sure it would just intimidate individuals even more, as it is armed police (To my knowledge) may only patrol/be called out as a party or group of at least two outnumbering single criminals. Killer, I agree, I also think that other banned items should be legal on private property. For example some explosives and some drugs, but there should be laws stopping the sales of the items without a valid license, this would most likely stop people from taking illegal routes to gain the item, and use a license thus letting the government keep record of these items and the holders.
I'm not sure if this is something that any of us should/have a say in. It's up to the police as to whether or not they carry firearms - they're more than capable of judging if it's appropriate for what they're up against. Numerous reports have shown that the lions share of officers do not support the distribution of lethal weapons amongst their respective force and so I'm fairly sure that this is the end of the debate for me. I have fair amount of faith in the British police and I'd trust them to choose these things for themselves. Anyway, it's not like there aren't armed response forces if they're needed.
I think the statistic in the OP regarding the number of serious injuries and fatalaties is too simplistic. For example, all figures for the 2006-07 period.. - there was 3000 firearms injuries excluding air weapons. - there was 59 homicides but 759 attempted murders - over 18,000 firearms offences (11,000 if you exclude criminal damage) [URL="http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/opus713/ccjs_gun_crime_report.pdf"]Source.[/URL] Some interesting graphs and stats in there.
[QUOTE=squids_eye;37733600]If police are suddenly armed the criminals will all be armed. It will probably just escalate the violence and get more innocent people killed in the crossfire.[/QUOTE] Debatable. Police in the United States started off as peace keepers, and never required firearms until criminals started carrying them. There is nothing wrong with having a law enforcement official carrying a firearm, given that they are properly trained in not only use of the firearm but in practical application of using the firearm as a deterrent, without using it as an escalation of force.
Guy robbing bank and then taking a hostage, we'll throw rocks at him! No, seriously. Theres a fucking reason why law enforcement is armed, and thats if a maniac goes down the street shooting everyone in sight the officers atleast have a fighting chance.
[QUOTE=Michael haxz;38733765]Theres a fucking reason why law enforcement is armed, and thats if a maniac goes down the street shooting everyone in sight the officers atleast have a fighting chance.[/QUOTE] If someone is running down the street trying to kill anyone in sight then other civil departments have something to answer for.
[QUOTE=Michael haxz;38733765]Guy robbing bank and then taking a hostage, we'll throw rocks at him! No, seriously. Theres a fucking reason why law enforcement is armed, and thats if a maniac goes down the street shooting everyone in sight the officers atleast have a fighting chance.[/QUOTE] As said, if you call the police and report someone with a gun, the armed response police will come with guns themselves. The debate is whether [i]every[/i] officer should be armed, if you call the police and report a burglary, an unarmed officer with come for example
Police don't usually prevent crimes, they respond to them after the fact. The UK is a good example of a police force that works without most officers being armed. 3 police officers were shot and killed in the UK this year, compare that with 40 in the US. The bottom line is that police officers not having guns means less people die. Less police die, less criminals die, less citizens die. A police officer being killed in the UK by criminals is national news for weeks. It's very rare. It's also very rare to stop crime while it is happening. The police will probably eventually track you down after the fact, and if you did it with a gun they are probably going to send an Armed Response unit. British police are very highly trained professionals and they are trained to subdue people with knives - even in buildings, they are trained to rush into rooms and surround you with plexiglass and pummel the shit out of you until you drop your weapon. Police in the UK won't even pursue you in a car if it's too dangerous to the public. They don't need to stop you, they'll get you later and make you pay for putting people in danger and they'll especially make you pay for firearms offenses. This is reality, not Hollywood.
I bet their crime deterrence rates are less, and more crime occurs. You can't base a debate like this over one statistic. While it is true that many officers respond after a crime has occurred, at least in the US, an armed police officer can be at a crime in roughly 15 minutes, and can subdue the suspect (most of the time) with lethal force if necessary, while average SRT response times rage from 30 minutes to an hour and a half. Our country is too large to rely on small groups of SRT officers for every gun-wielding situation. Small towns like mine require an SRT team to respond from 40 miles away, alternatively, our campus police are abundant enough in numbers to get most armed crimes taken care of with their sidearms and vehicle loadouts.
see the problem with tasers, is they are designed for the average body conditions, such as hydration, muscle density, body fat, ect, but you throw alchohol or drugs into the mix and its gonna take 2 or 3 guys with tasers to take them down, don't believe me, go watch a crooks gone wild show, chances are they'll throw in a clip of a drunk or methhead getting hit with 2 or 3 of them and shrugging them off. police are armed in the U.S. because they are the first and last word when they arive at a problem, and often they arrive alone before backup arrives, and many areas only have 2 or 3 officers at all, like driving to visit my grandmother, i pass through a town with 3 cop cars total, you can count them as you go through the town, there aren't enough people to justify having more than a few officers in the entire town, yet they get alot of traffic that flows through their town because its between the highway and the toll roads.
Well there are benefits to both, but I do believe police officers should be armed. Otherwise the oppressors would not tolerate the authorities voice as much. It is an object that signals fear, but then again there are also a lot of issues with an armed officer as well.
i do feel that in some places cops are more than likely to shoot first, ask questions later, the city closest to my home town has cops that every year seem to get in the news for some shootout or some other bit, and when the full story is investigated, it usually could have been avoided, but that being said, its only the bad or trigger happy cops you see on the news, not the ones that defuse the situation like they are trained to do
[QUOTE=squids_eye;37733600]If police are suddenly armed the criminals will all be armed. It will probably just escalate the violence and get more innocent people killed in the crossfire.[/QUOTE] Police being [I]suddenly[/I] armed? At least in the US, the cops have always been armed. Think of this scenario: A person is asleep while a robber breaks into his house through the window. The crash wakes the victim, being a typical unarmed citizen (in my opinion problem #1), him, his wife, and his children go hide in the closet and call the police. The robber didn't expect anyone to be home. One of the man's children begins crying and the robber hears it and pulls a gun. It's too bad that the nearest cop who was only a few minutes away was unarmed/armed with pepper spray or something similar. The nearest SWAT team or other armed unit is at least 10 minutes away, too late because the man has already been shot and his family tied up. Once again this is just a scenario, but If I'm a criminal, here's what I would think. Say I'm a gangster who has more than the cops to deal with, I also have to watch out for rival gangs. Knowing the cops are unarmed will only make me more confident to start shootouts with other gangs.
[QUOTE=SeamanStains;38736859]Police don't usually prevent crimes, they respond to them after the fact. The UK is a good example of a police force that works without most officers being armed. 3 police officers were shot and killed in the UK this year, compare that with 40 in the US. The bottom line is that police officers not having guns means less people die. Less police die, less criminals die, less citizens die. A police officer being killed in the UK by criminals is national news for weeks. It's very rare. It's also very rare to stop crime while it is happening. The police will probably eventually track you down after the fact, and if you did it with a gun they are probably going to send an Armed Response unit. British police are very highly trained professionals and they are trained to subdue people with knives - even in buildings, they are trained to rush into rooms and surround you with plexiglass and pummel the shit out of you until you drop your weapon. Police in the UK won't even pursue you in a car if it's too dangerous to the public. They don't need to stop you, they'll get you later and make you pay for putting people in danger and they'll especially make you pay for firearms offenses. This is reality, not Hollywood.[/QUOTE] Pretty much this.
[QUOTE=Suff;38784952]Pretty much this.[/QUOTE] It might work in the UK, but it still wouldn't work here, not with all the suburbs, crime, drug cartels, and urban gangs that the US has. Need I mention our already overcrowded prison system WITH armed officers? You think getting rid of armed officers will reduce those figures? Absolutely not, I've seen way to many scenes where a combatant gets a gun drawn on them and gives up to avoid being shot, it's a scare tactic, and it works. Otherwise a cop is gonna show up, and say "Get on the ground", where a response from a criminal may be "Or what?". Unless of course you consider the power of numbers, in which officers significantly outnumber the criminal, but the US doesn't have enough officers to support this strategy either.
[QUOTE=007SILVERTOE;38785363]It might work in the UK, but it still wouldn't work here, not with all the suburbs, crime, drug cartels, and urban gangs that the US has. Need I mention our already overcrowded prison system WITH armed officers? You think getting rid of armed officers will reduce those figures? Absolutely not, I've seen way to many scenes where a combatant gets a gun drawn on them and gives up to avoid being shot, it's a scare tactic, and it works. Otherwise a cop is gonna show up, and say "Get on the ground", where a response from a criminal may be "Or what?". Unless of course you consider the power of numbers, in which officers significantly outnumber the criminal, but the US doesn't have enough officers to support this strategy either.[/QUOTE] Again, you've brought up the point that other civil departments are failing. If crime rates are so high, then you shouldn't be looking at how to stop crimes that are already in progress, but how to deter people from ever committing one. Arming police officers is, in my opinion, a last ditch effort that simply confirms other governmental organisations aren't effective.
[QUOTE=SeamanStains;38736859]Police don't usually prevent crimes, they respond to them after the fact. The UK is a good example of a police force that works without most officers being armed. 3 police officers were shot and killed in the UK this year, compare that with 40 in the US. The bottom line is that police officers not having guns means less people die. Less police die, less criminals die, less citizens die. A police officer being killed in the UK by criminals is national news for weeks. It's very rare. It's also very rare to stop crime while it is happening. The police will probably eventually track you down after the fact, and if you did it with a gun they are probably going to send an Armed Response unit. British police are very highly trained professionals and they are trained to subdue people with knives - even in buildings, they are trained to rush into rooms and surround you with plexiglass and pummel the shit out of you until you drop your weapon. Police in the UK won't even pursue you in a car if it's too dangerous to the public. They don't need to stop you, they'll get you later and make you pay for putting people in danger and they'll especially make you pay for firearms offenses. This is reality, not Hollywood.[/QUOTE] That is such a shitty thing to do, compare the US to the UK in pure numbers, the US is a larger country so naturally it's going to be on a larger scale... And I don't know how you figure because less police have guns all of a sudden criminals are going to be like "Well gee guys, I guess since they don't have guns, we'll just go ahead and put our guns away for now, I mean, I wouldn't want to have an upper hand or anything" That's just poor comprehension. Anyways, I'm the first person to say that violence is always the last answer, but if you're a police officer, you know when violence is necessary or not, hopefully. and if it were a perfect world I would take guns out altogether, but ya know what? You can't because they exist, and once it exists, there's no going back, same with nukes and oil. but I digress, giving police officers less of a way to defend themselves against a threat is silly.
[QUOTE=zach1193;38788850]That is such a shitty thing to do, compare the US to the UK in pure numbers, the US is a larger country so naturally it's going to be on a larger scale... And I don't know how you figure because less police have guns all of a sudden criminals are going to be like "Well gee guys, I guess since they don't have guns, we'll just go ahead and put our guns away for now, I mean, I wouldn't want to have an upper hand or anything" That's just poor comprehension. Anyways, I'm the first person to say that violence is always the last answer, but if you're a police officer, you know when violence is necessary or not, hopefully. and if it were a perfect world I would take guns out altogether, but ya know what? You can't because they exist, and once it exists, there's no going back, same with nukes and oil. but I digress, giving police officers less of a way to defend themselves against a threat is silly.[/QUOTE] The US is 311M people. The UK is 62M people. The US has 5 times the population, as such, a UK with 311M people with the same rate of police officers being killed by guns per capital would come out at 15 deaths per year. Which is still around 2.5 times lower than in the US. It's rare to catch criminals in the act of committing a crime, therefore, there is no need for normal police officers to have guns. The difference between someone using a gun in a crime and a knife in a crime is minimal while it is happening. The police won't track them down until afterwards - and that is the point where it makes a difference. If you used a gun, expected a standard British armed response team to show up at your door with assault rifles, submachine guns and tasers and expect a MUCH longer prison sentence. Criminals aren't that stupid. They know they are probably going to go to prison at some point, so they want to minimise that prison time by not using guns. Just to drive it home again, the reality is, police officers will almost never get to an armed robbery or similar incidents while the offenders are still there. The offenders will be caught in their vehicle or days/weeks/months/years later by an armed response team. British police have two modes of operation. Unarmed, and armed to the fucking teeth. In cities, and especially around potential terror targets, there are armed patrols, like this. They just patrol around and around ready to respond to anything serious. Notice they are now how you would imagine armed US police to be. This patrol is not out to arrest criminals, it's out to subdue serious threats will copious amounts of bullets. [img_thumb]http://nickthornsby.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/police.jpg[/img_thumb] [img_thumb]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/10/26/article-0-0B1FCAD3000005DC-484_468x394.jpg[/img_thumb] If you really pissed off the police by using a gun in a crime, and they find out where you and your accomplices live, this is what they send after you to arrest you, an Armed Response Unit. These teams also response to guncrime that is ongoing, such as hostage taking. [img_thumb]http://previous.presstv.ir/photo/20120522/sheidayi20120522155232390.jpg[/img_thumb] Most police are unarmed, apart from sprays and telescopic batons, which police train heavily in the use of. The first line of defense for a British police officer is their baton, and they treat the thing like a martial art. So, basically, the majority of the police in the UK are unarmed because they don't need guns. They aren't going to come up against guns. The only reason they would need guns is to protect themselves, but since they aren't going to be protecting themselves against people with guns - they don't need them themselves. They get paid good money to kick the shit out of people and arrest them, not to panic and shoot them, or over react and shoot them, or get shot because the criminals had to shoot them because they were armed. [img_thumb]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-axuz_LeB9W0/T_v5zHXEo4I/AAAAAAAAAIc/aQorkf2VJFM/s1600/British+police.jpg[/img_thumb] Police in the UK get a bad reputation because this is their public face during mass civil disorder, but the fact is, UK police are fantastic at their job most of the time. They don't have to resort to easy methods like guns, they put on a brave face and arrest people with knives unarmed.
They could use certain guns which stun people, like a tazer. And they should only use it if the criminal is dangerous, otherwise hold tight onto your baton.
Sebi, it would do you good to read the whole thread first. Tasers were discussed, and the foremost points that were made are that they're sometimes dangerous and aren't always effective. Tasers are not a non-lethal alternative to handguns if that's what you're saying.
Tazers will just turn our police into lazy abusive assholes.
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