Should Police Officers be allowed to carry firearms?

Most cars now have a handgun in the glove-compartment, however, unlike most other countries in the world, the Police don't carry their own weaponry, unless they are in special positions like Airports, guards for monarchs/PM etc or as the Armed Response Teams.?

In areas with a high proportion of gun crime, yes. Airports, Royal Guards and that, yes of course. Most police officers don't need to, and tbh seeing a copper carrying a handgun down your local high street would scare the living daylights out of most people who've never even seen a real gun in the flesh before.

Didn't that Bird guy point his gun at two police officers who couldn't do **** as they weren't armed. Sure would have stopped him a lot faster if they just shot him immediately.

Yeah I think police should be armed. Yes it is harder to get a gun in the UK than in other places, but it's not impossible and lots of criminals have guns. If criminals have guns the people who are meant to be enforcing law should also have guns (so should the citizens actually but that's another argument). Not giving the police guns is putting their lives at risk and given the role they serve they should be allowed to protect themselves in the best possible way.

Yeah, agreed, it would.

I agree with your post, also.

I do think, though, that some Police (as people do) would be inclined to fire-first-ask-questions-later. Then again, if someone was threatening me with a weapon, I'd do the same.

I'd like to see more Police trained in FAPAM, but every Police Officer having a sidearm? It 'may' cause more problems then it solves, between just having one weapon in the Glove Compartment. That, again raises a problem however:

1) The training would be expensive, and there would a loss in Policing numbers as you can't just train one at a time.
2) The glove compartment is hardly an ideal place to be acquiring a weapon from if you're being shot at or threatened. You'd need several locks on it, and that would be harder to do with your adrenaline pumping, and not to mention, bullet holes flying through your windscreen.

I was about to say this too. I'm undecided as to whether it's a good thing or not. I find it somewhat scary

I don't really understand this point that people make...if a police officer intentionally shoots dead an unarmed man then you punish that officer. A lack of discipline isn't a reason to put their lives at risk, it's an indication that they need more training.



I'd have thought spending money on training is better than spending money on combating increased crime and payouts to families of officers killed. The first argument is, no offense, pretty stupid. That's not an attack on you personally, because it always comes up. It's basically saying training our officers to be disciplined and able to defend themselves and the public is too expensive so we're not going to bother. Well....I guess that's the same argument used with the British army. Essential equipment? Nah, too expensive.

I saw a few posts in this thread saying guns make the police "too intimidating". They're meant to be intimidating, their job is to stop criminals doing bad things, if you dress them up like little girls and give them a stick to hit all the bad men with they aren't going to do **** to stop criminals. Criminals carry knives or guns. They need to know they will get killed or seriously hurt if they try to use a gun. No wonder American crime rates are decreasing whilst British ones are still rising, police would probably get charged if they dared even shout at someone to stop stealing something.

'most cars have a handgun in the glovebox'

and where did you hear that tripe?

Q's in the title. Should British Police have standard issue firearms on patrol?

Most cars now have a handgun in the glove-compartment, however, unlike most other countries in the world, the Police don't carry their own weaponry, unless they are in special positions like Airports, guards for monarchs/PM etc or as the Armed Response Teams.

So, yeah, do you think ALL Police should carry a sidearm?

I'm in between on this one.

I'm glad that our Police Forces don't have to carry a weapon in order to gain respect. If you get me? We don't need to actively show that we can only get Criminals in jail by pointing a gun at them.

On the other hand, I think Crime would go down much more. I know I'd be reluctant to rob a shop with anOfficer's Glock pointed at me.

So what do you think?

lol and...lol.

Yeah, you're right actually.

The ARTs are, at present, able to deal with every shooting that goes on, what few there are. So training them, whilst I agree a good idea, would probably be a waste seen as they can deal with them at present. However, I do, like I said, agree that it would be invaluable training, should such a situation that requires proficient firearms skill come up.

You're second point, yes, they are meant to be intimidating, however, some of the most proficient armament operators in the world are Gang's members, both current and ex. (Not necessarily in the UK, although in some areas with a high-crime-rate, I.E inner-city areas in some cities, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some fairly prominent Kalashnikov users. Then again, 6 year-old children can use them better then the adults they fight alongside in areas that saw fighting in Africa, i.e Liberia, Dem-Rep of Congo, Sierra Leone etc. I digress), will know that a handgun has nothing on a rifle. And seen as firearms such as Kalashnikovs, M-16s, M-4s have made it into Britain and into the grasp of Gang-members... Well, shooting a Glock back at a Kalashnikov is going to be a pointless waste of time.

If I were a Police Officer, and were armed, I'd be more intimidated by the Gang-men's AK then I know he would be by a Glock.

However, for crimes NOT in that league, like robberies etc, and I saw Police pointing them at me whilst I held a baseball bat, I'd surrender myself *******-ricky-ticky also. Haha.

You need to put the actual situation in perspective. Yes some gangs have SMGs or whatever, but tbh how often do the regular police get cornered by gangs with those? And even if they are, I know I'd prefer to be armed with a glock than a stick, even if I'm vastly outpowered, I'm still armed with something and will have had a great deal of training in how to fire it accurately. Your situation with the assault rifles is absurd for another reason. If those guns are already in the UK, then what exactly is a police officer going to do atm? Wave his stick and shout loudly at them? None of the civilians have weapons, so in the time it takes that officer to call for the armed response squad, and for them to get there you're going to have the possibility for a lot of dead people.

You were, afaik, talking about the UK? So child soldiers armed with ak47s aren't really a big issue (yet? ), the crimes are more likely to be more easily concealed guns or knives in which case your last paragraph has basically exactly shown why the police should be armed. Anyone in the UK with an illegal gun isn't going to be particularly proficient at firing it, certainly not to the level that a police officer has been trained.

Well, like I said, one of the guys I go riding with said that all patrol cars within Carlton HQ had a Glock in the glove compartment when I asked him the Q.

Whether that was just Carlton, I'm not sure.

Around Penrith, you'd need it anyway.