Westham67
3:37 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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Briano 11:38 Sun Mar 26
I was in a Taxi with a mate at Aldgate when that went off Taxi felt like someone had run into the back of him, not until we got back to the local did we hear what had happened
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jack flash
2:13 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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Aardvark 1:14 ~
Pretty much agree with that
There is always a lot of knee-jerk reaction after this sort of nasty incident & there are strong, valid arguements either way
Sometimes it can be difficult to define the "Flashpoint areas" exactly.
Obviously, airports, main train & bus stations, ports, around Parliamentry buildings, main police stations, around nuclear & chemical plants, & now anywhere there are large crowds gathered (football matches & other sporting events)
It is difficult to know where to draw the line!
Living in Cumbria, I know full well the problem of not having armed police on hand to deal with firearm situations
When Derek Bird sadly flipped & went on an all day shooting rampage, armed police were brought in from the other side of the country to deal with the incident. It took several hours before they were eventually deployed
The armed police at Sellafield, who are supposed to help out in such situations, rapidly ran for cover behind the iron doors, while the unarmed local cops simply ran away!
I would hate to see all policemen armed with firearms, but there should be a special armed force that can be immediately deployed ready to be on the scene within minutes, at any part of the country
At present there just seems a total lack of co-ordination
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bruuuno
2:05 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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No
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ted fenton
1:20 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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Would be hard to arm all police as it's a nine week course and they're short staffed already !!!
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Aardvark
1:14 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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It's a big fat no from me. Admittedly, more armed police are needed in 'flashpoint' areas, but to give a gun to every copper is madness and not much more than a knee-jerk reaction to the events that happened at Westminster in the week.
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ironsofcanada
11:51 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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It is easy to think that armed police force would be like the situation in the US because it is the loudest thing on the news a lot of the time but there are plenty of fully armed police forces around the world.
The police in the States are pretty much under siege in a number of places. That is because of a lot of factors including their own failings at institutional and in limited cases, individual level.
The point is, it is not necessarily that way.
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Briano
11:38 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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Chim
My mate was a fireman on one of the many road closures around the City, the only fatality was the News of the world photographer who jumped his barrier saying 'I need to get a decent photo when it goes off'
The lorry was parked at the base of the Natwest Tower in an attempt to topple it, but the blast went down into various tunnels under the streets and came back up taking all the windows out of any building in the vicinity.
The Photographer was standing on some old square glass basement skylights, blasted up through him
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ted fenton
11:30 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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A left wing politician, a TV reporter and an SAS trooper were captured by ISIS. They were sentenced to death by beheading. The ISIS leader said they could have one last wish each before sentence was carried out
The politician ask to hear a rendering of keep the red flag flying!
The reporter asked that the beheading to be televised so that even when he was dead his face would be on TV.
The trooper asked to be kicked three times up the arse.
This was carried out. As the last kick landed the trooper pulled a hidden 9mm pistol out of his smock shot three terrorists dead, grabbed a fallen AK47 and killed the rest of the terrorists!
The other two were amazed, and asked why he requested to be kicked three times before drawing the gun?
"Because" said the trooper; "When we get back to the UK, I don't want you pair of bastards saying it was an unprovoked attack"!!
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Westham67
11:28 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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There is more than one of those as well
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Westham67
11:26 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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No look at the deaths of innocent people at the hands of the police in the US
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Westham67
11:26 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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No look at the deaths of innocent people at the hands of the police in the US
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ironsofcanada
11:25 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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Really tough one.
My sister switched from being RCMP to being a Sheriff just before this happened
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayerthorpe_tragedy
She was serving in Whitecourt months before and probably would have been one of those that responded if still there.
One of the things to come out of that was an acknowledgement that the RCMP members involved were woeful out gunned.
So part me wants to prevent that happening to any law enforcement official.
On the other hand, the distrust between police and public grows every day and in theory at least carrying a gun widens that gap. Also you probably can never prepare for every situation and there may always be a chance that the criminal will out gun you, no matter what you carry.
So there you go.
(It is interesting to not see guns at all here, except when I walk by the American embassy on the way to the consulate and there are full on machine guns in the streets.)
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lab
10:04 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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Cholo 9:18.
Your first sentence is a good point. Imagine someone legging it from the police , assuming he's not a terrorist but say a burglar or drug dealer at the moment he's not going to get shot at. If police are armed is the runner going to start shooting at them ? Precarious situation , I think it could result in more police deaths. But of course , to state the obvious, if the copper in the week was armed he would still be alive .
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Banjo
9:28 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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Yes,yes and yes for a million reason.
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cholo
9:18 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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You could argue it would up the ante amongst criminals, who could arm themselves in response when otherwise they wouldn't have.
It will never happen anyway, firstly the cost of training and arming all officers would be astronomical, in view of the relatively low threat the vast majority of the police have of facing an armed assailant. Secondly there's no desire of the police themselves to be fully armed.
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BubblesCyprus
9:09 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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''On the fence'' on this one as in the line of Duty I would say yes but experiences of living here and Gulf is the odd idiot who takes his/her gun home with them and as the local press ''subtly report a ''domestic incident involving a Police Officer shooting his wife and kids. Grieving big busted blonde girlfriend of 1 week is shocked that her peace loving new boyfriend could possibly do such a thing.
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claret50
8:49 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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Definitely.
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mike hunt
4:03 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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absolutely , if you're not a wrong un , you have nothing to fear
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norwaytips
3:24 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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No, they shouldn't. We have armed police at many 'terrorist targets' and that is good enough. It wouldn't have changed anything at the Parliament attack.
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Any Old Iron
2:55 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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chim chim cha boo 2:20 Sun Mar 26
Yes, you're right, the PC's first thought on seeing some bloke running toward him with a dirty great knife wouldn't be to shoot him, but having a gun and being trained in how to use it would have given him a fighting chance.
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chim chim cha boo
2:20 Sun Mar 26
Re: should all British police be armed?
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In a way it reminded me of the so called 'ring of steel' around the city of London after the Bishopsgate bomb as a measure of reassurance to city workers about the IRA.
Virtually everyone I knew who drove through the city used to laugh about the secret intelligence they must have received about an underground black-skinned cell of the IRA because that was the colour of the skin of nearly EVERYONE who was stopped back then.
I feel very sorry for the policeman who was stabbed and the ones run over last week but I think we've got the balance about right. The police are only human and a handful WILL misuse guns if they are given one. More police with guns will mean more criminals will think THEY need guns and it's a genie you can't put back into the bottle once it's been released.
Think about it, do you think this nutter the other day wouldn't have used a gun if he could have got his hands on one? The other leap of faith people are jumping to is that having a gun would have saved the copper's life. The first (and possibly only) thing he would have seen was a big bloke running straight at him. I'm guessing the first thought (and possibly his last) would have been to try and defend himself and disarm the attacker, not discharge his weapon on the parliament grounds immediately.
The correct person to make that judgement to shoot would have seen what had happened to his colleague and he did make the right call.
He would have been confused by the sound of the crash and the first couple of minutes would have been chaos with everything going on around him. Everything we think and discuss is done with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.
It brings me back around to the docklands bomb. I was heading west along the Limehouse link when the bomb went off. It was a terrible noise and as I looked left I could see the smoke rising up. I thought they'd hit a gas main or a WW2 bomb. I was listening to Radio London in the car and it felt like a full minute until the stuff came down onto the car out of the blue. Big orange balls of fire that shattered as they hit the road in front of me and fell on the car. I hadn't ever thought about debris blasted into the air and taking time to fall back down again.
In a way the weirdest thing was the announcer on the radio talking normally for about ten minutes and playing songs when a bomb had just gone off before he said 'we're hearing about an incident...'
When something like this happens that is so out of the ordinary it's just chaos for a while. I'm not sure the Policeman (a brave, brave bloke tackling an armed man) would have been quick enough for a gun to save him.
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