Should the UK police be equipped with firearms?

Rooster · Postby **Rooster** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 6:16 pm

At 3.00pm yesterday, two female police officers were gunned down in Bradford. One died at the scene and another is critically injured. <a href='http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bradford/4452710.stm' target='_blank'>Link to BBC report</a> There has been some debate about the fact that if the WPCs had been armed, that Pc Sharon Beshenivsky might not be dead. However, this is specualtion. I think that arming the police, especially in a country like the UK with strict firearms controls, would create too much of a power gap between the police and the crooks. Eventually the crooks will have to start getting better stuff than the police, and the crooks will then get better stuff and etc ect. In my opinion, arming all police officers in the UK would be a disaster. You only have to look at the US to see that having armed police does not mean that people don't commit crimes...they just commit crimes with guns to fight the police. Anyway, that's my opinion. What does anyone else think?

Joe3210 · Postby **Joe3210** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 7:35 pm

If they have strict gun laws, how can the thieve have a gun anyway?

Softpaw · Postby **Softpaw** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 11:39 pm

Criminals will always be able to acquire firearms, no matter how illegal they are. Disarming police officers only makes the problem worse. Outlawing guns and removing them from the police only serves to make the armed criminals more powerful, the police weaker, and puts more innocent civilians in danger. A full-scale arms race isn't the solution, so slippery-slope arguments about people carrying missiles in their pickup trucks is just silly. But there needs to be a balance between gun-free and massive private arsenals.

Steve the Pocket · Postby **Steve the Pocket** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 2:15 am

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I was shocked to discover that there are countries where even law enforcement is disarmed! I would think that would be dangerous. But then, I'm used to living in a country where police raids and such are expected to get violent. Plus... if this news item is considered a big deal in the UK, it must not happen often. Heck, cops getting shot down... from what little I've seen of the news, that seems to happen pretty frequently around here. I dunno. Maybe I'm just a crazy hippie (heh... me... that's a good one <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' />), but if you can get the same results without guns as with them, I'd just as soon not have the guns. People in the UK look at news like this and say "See? This is why we need more guns" but when it happens in the US, people look at it and say "See? This is why we need less guns." It all depends on which system genuinely works better.

Rooster · Postby **Rooster** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 4:21 am

Getting the guns isn't a problem. I know how to make a fully working revolver from a bb replica. It doesn't take a mastermind. However, having armed police in this country would create more tension between the government and the public. We banned all handguns and small firearms for private ownership after the Dunblaine tragedy where a gunman broke into a school and killed about 20 small kids. We have armed police in patrolcars, but only 5% of our police are armed. Even if 99% police officers could be trusted to use firearms safely and only as a last resort, there would still be 1% that would shoot first, and that's still too high.

Tom Flapwell · Postby **Tom Flapwell** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 4:53 pm

I wonder if we should follow Chris Rock's advice: keep guns legal but charge a motherload for bullets.

DesertFoxCat · Postby **DesertFoxCat** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 8:27 pm

Artificial price controls never seem to turn out well.

Ankaris · Postby **Ankaris** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 1:10 pm

I think that some people in the UK tabloids have gone a bit overboard after this. The key thing to remember is that this is a rare event, and why it's gotten so much coverage. I don't think that more police should be armed, and certainly not that we should bring back the death penalty. Hmmm... I'd say, change policy slightly. Treat robbery of place of business as if it could be armed robbery, say, give the responding officers body armour and non-lethal takedown equipment. To try and limit gun-crime itself, for any crime committed with a firearm add maybe... 5 / 10 years onto the jail term? I'd say that this would be a better idea than tiered crimes (murder / murder of a police officer) as I don't think the criminals specifically killed the woman because she was police, rather because she and her partner were people who got in the way. That and I think tiered crimes are just bad anyway.

Gizensha · Postby **Gizensha** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 4:04 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (Ankaris @ Nov 23 2005, 01:10 PM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> I think that some people in the UK tabloids have gone a bit overboard after this. The key thing to remember is that this is a rare event, and why it's gotten so much coverage. I don't think that more police should be armed, and certainly not that we should bring back the death penalty. Hmmm... I'd say, change policy slightly. Treat robbery of place of business as if it could be armed robbery, say, give the responding officers body armour and non-lethal takedown equipment. To try and limit gun-crime itself, for any crime committed with a firearm add maybe... 5 / 10 years onto the jail term? I'd say that this would be a better idea than tiered crimes (murder / murder of a police officer) as I don't think the criminals specifically killed the woman because she was police, rather because she and her partner were people who got in the way. That and I think tiered crimes are just bad anyway.  </td></tr></table>  The UK tabloids always go a bit overboard on everything, though.

Ankaris · Postby **Ankaris** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 8:52 pm

I know, I know, but when you have papers like the Sun running around screaming about how *all* their readers support 90-day detention, and obviously they are the paper of the people so *everyone* reads the Sun, so the MPs are betraying the general public... *shuts up before he veers into OffTopicLand*

Gizensha · Postby **Gizensha** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 9:16 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (Ankaris @ Nov 23 2005, 08:52 PM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> I know, I know, but when you have papers like the Sun running around screaming about how *all* their readers support 90-day detention, and obviously they are the paper of the people so *everyone* reads the Sun, so the MPs are betraying the general public... *shuts up before he veers into OffTopicLand*  </td></tr></table>  I know, I know... ...But then, no-one who actually thinks reads the sun. Looks at the illustrations on page three, maybe, but no-one with a brain actually *reads* it.

Henohenomoheji · Postby **Henohenomoheji** » Sun Nov 27, 2005 2:47 pm

Ninja post! Ban guns altogether. Swords are cooler anyway.

Muninn · Postby **Muninn** » Sun Nov 27, 2005 3:57 pm

But guns can operate from a distance so we should replace them with bows and arrows.

Zaaphod · Postby **Zaaphod** » Mon Nov 28, 2005 1:51 am

Let's ban all weapons and go back to killing each other with our bare hands.

norsenerd · Postby **norsenerd** » Mon Nov 28, 2005 2:21 am

Maybe we shoudl jsut ban people.

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Should the UK police be equipped with firearms?

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