The Big DebateIf you feel the need to get your teeth stuck right into a heavy debate on a subject you feel really passionate about, then this is the place to do so. Post about religion, politics, laws and all things juicy like that here.
Should the police be given the use of firearms?
What makes me think this should be considered is after watching a program about a police team who get about 6,7 call outs in a shift about someone who has been seen with a dangerous weapon, including a gun.
Now how are the police really meant to protect them selfs? The only true effective weapon against a gun is another gun.
With dangerous weapons everywhere, gun crime on the increase, as well as terrorism, yob culture etc etc maybe its about time our police started to be taken seriously?
I really do find the police arnt feared or respected in the slightest on my estate, the kids do what they want, especially the under 16 who think they cant get done by the police cause they are not 16. But the majority of the adults are just as bad. They all seem to think the police are useless and have no fear of them.
Now while on my holiday to Poland as soon as i got out of the plane there was a young, hard looking army guy by the entrance to the terminal with a uzi! So as soon as i landed into Poland i knew this was the country where i really can not afford to act like an idiot. I also heard that its not wise to approach the Polish police when drunk, they will lock you up before you can say I'm a British citizen!
Also all the police wore militant uniforms and also carried guns, we didnt see that many, but as soon as i seen one it really give me the respect for the police, i never break the law anyway but seeing the police with guns i made sure i didn't even as much as litter the streets!
I don't really know that much about Polish crime, but they seem like a chilled out people and just seem to get on with life, they don't have many immigrants, most of them coming here, so there is no real major division between the people due to religion or race.
The only thing i would be worried about is the incompetence of our police? Would our police be trusted using guns? I noticed in Poland all the police were fairly young, very fit and looked so alert and you could tell so trained it seemed the police were very similar to the army out there. But our police are totally different, not all our police are young and fit with sharp reflexes.
But i think it could work, if police were patrolling the streets with a gun strapped to their leg, i really think people would think twice of even raising their voices in the streets!
Really don't want to see guns on our police as a matter of course , travelling through any London airport where the police all carry guns ( some of them , big , uzi style things ) doesn't make me feel any safer . In fact there's something about all that weaponary on show that makes me more nervous tbh .
yes i think they should carry guns, like you said, how else are they supposed to be taken seriously?
however i feel some of our Bobby's may become trigger happy and gun someone down for having an erection in his pocket
Of course not. As chakotay said, seeing the police compensate for penis size with firearms only serves to create unease. I also don't trust the police one bit with firearms, and putting any sort of widespread firearm distribution into the system is likely to cause criminals to need more guns rather than less.
I remember going to spain years ago and seeing their police with guns, its not very nice. Its a hard line as to how far we should go with arming our bobbies, they do need respect restored to them but guns are not the way to do it. The cims will only fight fire with fire (or should i say firearms with firearms). I think it will encourage small minded cims to get guns thinking they can out smart the police. We do have half decent armed respons units in this country. I feel thats enough, there are ways to improve them but not the local bobby.
tbh i think the cash would be better spent on having more local Bobby's patrolling the streets
we have some who go past our house everday and its good to see.
Harv's uncle is a policeman, and a great one too. He has had all the fire-arms training as at one point in his career he was in the airport part where he was armed. The nutters he has had to face make me say yes coppers should be allowed to have fire-arms, along with strict training and extremely tight regulations, length of service and such. Not just hand them out, but have tight reigns on them, if you get what I mean.
I don't find the thought uneasy in the slightest. In Japan the local bobby rode around on his bike with a gun strapped to his belt, far from uneasy this made me feel safer knowing that nobody would f*ck with him whatsoever. Not like they would ever use them on you for something minor, but it's the status symbol more than anything. "I'm a cop and have a gun, you will respect my authoritah".
I also didn't see anyone else acting uneasily around him, probably because they have some ****ing culture and common sense.
Harv's uncle is a policeman, and a great one too. He has had all the fire-arms training as at one point in his career he was in the airport part where he was armed. The nutters he has had to face make me say yes coppers should be allowed to have fire-arms, along with strict training and extremely tight regulations, length of service and such. Not just hand them out, but have tight reigns on them, if you get what I mean.
Ye i was thinking more along those lines not just "Oh your a qualified policeman now have a uzi!".
I think it could very well be possible the way the papers are hyping all the crime up "A nation under siege" as the suns it might be the the governments only option to re-gain control of the streets.
the levels of crime in this country absolutely requires the 'shoot first ask questions later' approach,
before it's too late, both as a deterrant to would-be criminals, and to address the spiralling knife crime
and the numbers of officers getting killed on duty,
it's time the UK withdrew from the euro directives that protect the rights of the criminal,
and our courts given the powers to hand out 'life means lfe' and '3 strikes and your'e out'
type sentences,
community service should also be hard, backbreaking, soul destroying labour, and not 6 hours a day picking up
empty crisp packets in the park.
Harv's uncle is a policeman, and a great one too. He has had all the fire-arms training as at one point in his career he was in the airport part where he was armed. The nutters he has had to face make me say yes coppers should be allowed to have fire-arms, along with strict training and extremely tight regulations, length of service and such. Not just hand them out, but have tight reigns on them, if you get what I mean.
same as the other half's bro, has had all the training etc...
a few years ago i took lil un to disneyland paris, and there were loads of armed police, frightened the life out of me, still if they can do that to me, then it must make people think first!
The UK is too like America that it would simply create the need for criminals to arm themselves and takes it one step closer to the ******ed law enforcement of America.
Id feel less safe if police were armed because more criminals would be tooo..you'd have all the petty criminals carrying guns and things would just get worse i think.
tbh i think the cash would be better spent on having more local Bobby's patrolling the streets
we have some who go past our house everday and its good to see.
and i don't mean scooby Bobby's either.
here here!
a real policeman doesn't need a gun to impose respect. and if we start arming the police, the criminal element will simply scale things up.
The Police should spend more time patrolling the streets and less time chasing speeders and doing paperwork.
criminal goes to rob a store, carrying a knife - why not a gun? 'cos he knows nobody else is packing, so why spend out on a gun which can just lead to another reason for them to jail me.
criminal goes to rob a place, he knows police have guns, he'll have one too just to make sure he's on equal terms - further escalating both the danger for the police, and the public.
they already have the option to go to an incident with armed officers,
not every incident needs armed officers,
some incidents will be made worse if officers turn up armed as a matter of course.
I think gun-toting bobbies might raise the level of unease in the community but I don't think they would get more respect. No one thinks the armed police are actually going to shoot at them for minor violations.
I would have more respect for the bobbies and/or behave more responsibly around them if they had the power to impose harsher or stricter punishments. As a teenager, the day my mum or dad has to leave work come down to the station to pick me up because I mouthed off to an officer is the day I hear it from all sides.
I agree it should stay as only the really well-trained ones having guns.
They seem to be letting complete morons join up nowadays and it would be mad to give them guns.
i dont really see how it would make much difference. Criminals dont really arm themselves to beat/kill the police but rather overpower or threaten their victims.
We already have armed police for when its required.
I dont think it would deter people, its not like a cops gonna shoot at a 15 year old for running from them, and criminals will soon become aware that cops have rules for when they can/cant shoot people and people will adapt to the point itll just become a farce on regular police. I also recall hearing that plenty of US cops get shot with their own weapons.
Should the police be given firearms?
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