I've been thinking about this a lot lately in light of recent terror attacks.

Do you think all UK police should be regularly armed? 

Do you think they will be soon?

Personally I think it's just a matter of time before UK police are all armed. It's also worthy to consider a model similar to NZ where firearms are kept in all patrolcars and all officers are trained to use them.

It's a tough question that raises it's head over here often.  Personally, I'm in two minds and feel that perhaps the Norwegian and NZ model you mention, sidearms secured in the vehicle, is perhaps the closest to armed most beat constables need to be.  The issue we have here is that officers themselves have consistently voted against being armed routinely as the feel it's simply not needed, which is true 99% of the time.  

 

I feel that investment in greater numbers of specialised armed officers, as opposed to a fully armed service is a far better way to go at present, though the adoption of Taser as an intermediate weapon would be a great addition to the beat officer, to compliment the CS/PAVA and baton already carried.

27 minutes ago, Jakeus said:

The issue we have here is that officers themselves have consistently voted against being armed routinely as the feel it's simply not needed, which is true 99% of the time.

Yeah I think that's the real core of the issue. Firearms aren't needed 99 percent of the time, but when they're needed, they're needed.

Hello, I am from America and here in America all of our officers carry multiple guns. I am not from the U.K. but due to the recent spike in terrorist attacks I think they should arm more officers. Maybe not every officer, but more for sure. I don't see what the big issue is in arming cops, but once again I was born and raised in the US and here every officer carries at least  2 guns. And also here in America so many civilians have guns, it is mandatory for cops to have guns here, but that isn't the case in the UK so I don't think they need to arm every officer.

Edited June 20, 20178 yr by ACop

The UK may well need more firearms officers, but I don't think that arming all cops is the answer. I do think that more armed cops would be good, but so would more conventional cops. And specials. And community support officers.....

 

We already have a pretty good response time for the recent terrorist attacks. I don't think that introducing guns into everyday (but still highly stressful) situations is a good idea when the people in those situations have voted several times to stick to tasers, batons and CS gas (and talking to people).

 

I'd trust their judgement over the media or an internet forum. At the moment, most cops here seem to be calling for some more firearms officers, more taser training and more officers, but not guns for all.

Okay guys, let's keep this thread to the topic at hand. This isn't a gun control debate.

If every officer was to receive firearm training, I'm sure the standards of the training would drop.

 

I'm not against there being more Taser officers, AFOs, SFOs & CTSFOs. As long as the standards of the training they receive remains as high as it is now.

 

7 hours ago, sek510i said:

We already have a pretty good response time for the recent terrorist attacks. I don't think that introducing guns into everyday (but still highly stressful) situations is a good idea when the people in those situations have voted several times to stick to tasers, batons and CS gas (and talking to people).

It would appear that our police are so good at talking to people that others are willing to learn from them.

http://news.sky.com/story/scots-police-teach-us-cops-how-to-avoid-gun-use-10151069

 

And a reminder to people from outside the UK: Guns are not banned in the UK. They are however very strictly regulated.

This isn't a topic about whether civilians should have guns. It's a topic about whether police should be armed.

I always maintained that's a great tradition and shows how well-respected the police in the UK are. At least is supposed to show, in my opinion. Now I'm not sure whether the nice gesture worth another life, considering how many people (especially immigrants from completely strange cultures) consider unarmed cop as a weakness that shall be exploited.

 

If it was up to me I'd probably increase the number of AFO patrols (or whatever their proper name is) and promoted the expasion of firearms training. In this day and age an officer of the law has to know how to fight back (if he doesn't like it or is a pacifist or whatever may be it's better to become a bus driver. Sometimes it's not about what you want, it's about what the society needs).

8 hours ago, Sniper296 said:

If every officer was to receive firearm training, I'm sure the standards of the training would drop.

 

I'm not against there being more Taser officers, AFOs, SFOs & CTSFOs. As long as the standards of the training they receive remains as high as it is now.

This.

 

The NYPD struggles to qualify all of its nearly 40,000 officers twice a year, and their qualification is only 78% hits with 45 rounds.

 

Coupled with the fact many officers don't practice with their firearm outside of work, and only care that it goes bang when they need it to.

 

I agree that in today's climate in the UK tasers should be universal. It would also make the odds better in the event of a knife attack.

 

Perhaps something that could be looked at is familiarization training for current and future officers, that way they could pick up a weapon and stand a chance in the event of an attack involving firearms. It could include common police issued firearms, such as glocks, g36s, hk416s and mp5s, as well as weapons such as AK47s.

Something I see come up a lot is that brits see firearms-less officers as a sign of courage and respect. 'Policing by consent' also comes up a lot. While that's all well and good, I don't know, as @Hastings said, if it's worth another innocent life.

Can someone from the U.K. answer this question for me, are police in the U.K. generally respected? Because here in the U.S. a large portion of the population hates the police, that is mainly due to the media demonizing the police to further their agenda, but that is besides the point. Because if U.K. police are generally respected then they may not need to be that heavily armed.

1 hour ago, Thot Patrol said:

Because here in the U.S. a large portion of the population hates the police, that is mainly due to the media demonizing the police to further their agenda, but that is besides the point.

 

You know that not only medias are responsible for the bad reputation of the US police, right? The police ranks aren't made of an homogeneous entity of good-doers, there is a bunch of despicable individuals amongst them that tarnish their reputation. If people have a bad reputation of the US police, maybe it means that said police doesn't do its job properly at some point. I digress, but I wanted to point that out.

 

As for your question, I'm not a UK citizen, but know a bunch of british people, and from what I know the british police is respected, much more than in other european countries.

Edited June 23, 20178 yr by Hystery

46 minutes ago, Hystery said:

 

You know that not only medias are responsible for the bad reputation of the US police, right? The police ranks aren't made of an homogeneous entity of good-doers, there is a bunch of despicable individuals amongst them that tarnish their reputation. If people have a bad reputation of the US police, maybe it means that said police doesn't do its job properly at some point. I digress, but I wanted to point that out.

 

As for your question, I'm not a UK citizen, but know a bunch of british people, and from what I know the british police is respected, much more than in other european countries.

Due to the fact you don't live in the U.S. I doubt you don't see much U.S. media. Trust me, the media does a lot to harm the reputation of American police. But you are absolutely right, the media alone didn't create the reputation American cops have (they have a huge part to play in it though), a few bad apples ruin the bunch.

Edited June 23, 20178 yr by Thot Patrol

I think they should have guns in light of recent events. However they need to be trained well. Because these officers may have never even touched a gun in their lives and get trigger happy. Should it be like it is in the US with officers carrying up to 4 guns (2 pistols, 2 long guns)? No. They just need a pistol just in case anything happens.

5 hours ago, HomerS said:

I think they should have guns in light of recent events. However they need to be trained well. Because these officers may have never even touched a gun in their lives and get trigger happy. Should it be like it is in the US with officers carrying up to 4 guns (2 pistols, 2 long guns)? No. They just need a pistol just in case anything happens.

 

To be fairly honest, our cops in France have a handgun each (and recently even constables have been allowed to carry a weapon, before they were allowed to carry only tasers). And as you can see, it didn't prevent anything from happening.

 

Arming the police against terrorism isn't going to solve anything IMO. Terrorism isn't fought like regular crimes. You can't shoot an ideology. To fight terrorism, you need excellent intelligence services, and a permanent deconstruction of the ISIS myth found on the internet, where most of their recruitments are done. But a gun? Meh. After Paris and Nice, I can definitely say it doesn't help.

Edited June 23, 20178 yr by Hystery

2 minutes ago, Hystery said:

 

To be fairly honest, our cops in France have a handgun each (and recently even constable have been allowed to carry a weapon, before they were allowed to carry only tasers). And as you can see, it didn't prevent anything from happening.

 

Arming the police against terrorism isn't going to solve anything IMO. Terrorism isn't fought like regular crimes. You can't shoot an ideology. To fight terrorism, you need excellent intelligence services, and a permanent deconstruction of the ISIS myth found on the internet, where most of their recruitments are done. But a gun? Meh. After Paris and Nice, I can definitely say it doesn't help.

I should have worded my post differently on second thought. I think the guns should be more self defense and less stopping terra. But I agree you can't stop terrorism. I'm against the war on terror for this reason. It's a senseless, for profit war, that is fighting something that legitimately can't be stopped.

I don't like the idea of this.  I don't believe there is a specific need, and this is probably shown by how there actually is the tradition of police in the UK (excluding Northern Ireland) not carrying weapons.

 

Of course, there are a growing number of firearms officers - experienced cops who receive special training (which is very rigorous as far as I know) in the use of firearms - in the UK.  They are deployed to situations where firearms may be involved, and also conduct routine patrol work.  I think the best idea is to recruit more of these firearms officers.  

 

I'm uncomfortable with the idea of every police officer in the UK being issued a firearm.  I fear the training standards would have to be dramatically lowered, and we would see a huge rise in the needless escalation of incidents by the police.

@Hystery is definitely 'spot on' that terrorism can't be fought by doubling robocop patrols in subways or arming cops with machine guns. It takes nothing to get a truck or at least a butcher knife, but those who  set people up to this are who really should be targeted. However, we'd probably disagree on how it should be done... 

Edited June 24, 20178 yr by Hastings

There are a thousand and one reasons why routine arming of UK officers wouldn't work. 

 

But I'll just say, it's simply not necessary.  In the most recent terror attack, armed officers arrived on scene and neutralised the targets within 8 minutes of the first 999 call.  Westminster had a quicker response time & an AFO would not have prevented Manchester. 

 

There's also the issue of cost. We'd be much better of using that money to bolster the intelligence capabilities of our police forces & training more community officers.