DudeMan

i am not incorrect, the vehicles have 2 9mm concealed behind the gear stick in a locking compartment. bobbys on the beat are not armed, the police also require confirmation from the chief at the station to draw their weapons.



i say it for ease of understanding, when i have people here living in a totally different country already showing they know not too much about the police force here, i am not about to go into specifics about what each sections mandates and durastictions are. i was merely making the point that when referred to as armed police they are referring to (and i mention one unit as there is no collective term other than armed police) SO19. and i dont apreciate the insinuation of ignorance pal... not needed.


never said it was, although i live in a particularly rough area and only have the experience of this, you will find that in areas that did never feel scared about going to the police (or more likly under the tories... debating what the use of going to the police was) the crime rates and intimidation levels were low.



first off colombine and dumblain are different for one reason, the range of weapons used, the fact that minors carried out the killings, not the same IMO... secondly it isnt the last time a shooting in an american school has happened, if you wish to tell me that my police force is some how worse or unable to deal with the problems, you must in turn be saying that yours is. simply because your police force has the "essiental" weapon that mine does not. and quite obviously niether is totally perfect, but on the up turn niether i see is better than the next.


the above covers this aswell...

ifs and buts, sorry mate the fact is they voted against the notion, so you can speculate all you want this is back into the conspiracy theorist george orwell comming out again.

well actually i think you raise some good points here, i believe the policve should choose if they want guns, the moment they all say yeah give us the gun we dont feel safe... good luck to them.

as for the reforms ou mention, good luck, i thing the single force is a good idea it would also cut investigation times.,

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The Queen
"Those who perpetrate these brutal acts against innocent people should know that they will not change our way of life,"
Atrocities such as these simply reinforce our sense of community

TheFeniX
"Guns don't kill people: effeminate men in green tunics do"

CingularDuality

Most of the time, guns are effective without ever having the trigger pulled. Just like unarmed policing, I suppose, the symbolism is enough to get people to respect authority. If deadly force needed to be used by the police in a small room with five people in it, however, you must keep in mind that the bullets go precisely where they are aimed and that a bullet is very small. I'm not going to say that it's easy to put a bullet where you want it to go in a crowded, tense situation, but I'll say that it's very possible. There's no "spread" or BS headshots like in CS. Bullets go where the gun is aimed. Period.
You have no idea how much I appreciate hearing this. I certainly try. Thanks!
You, or someone else, has brought up the two surveys before, but I've never seen the site that you linked to. I'm gonna poke around there a bit more... Thanks.

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Root

Sorry if you felt that was directed at you Dudeman, it was absolutely not. I was just clarifying for those who don't know about the various armed units in the UK. I am often amongst those who use the SO19 reference when talking about any armed police to help those I am talking to understand.

As for your claim of 9mm's in every car, I've been in plenty of police cars (never as someone under arrest I hasten to add), and I've never seen any indication that your claim is true. I've been in the souped up emergency response cars, and in the panda cars.

I feel you're missing my point with regard to the police and whether or not they want to be armed. My point is that regardless of what they *want*, it's always going to be the politicians that get there way. The current state of affairs is that the police voted not to be armed, and it happened that the politicians don't want them to be armed, so give the illusion of allowing the police to choose.

Root

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DudeMan

im not missing your point, i am calling it untrue, they voted, and it was going to be put to parliament the result, had it been in favour who knows... its still conspiracy about the illusion of the vote... the vote took place, if you are going to say vote rigging, i would have to say i dont agree.

and no there is no indication because they are not visable, it is still a non visable thing, its like a compartment you would have a cup holder in, and it has a key mechanism.

as far as i am concerned i have no reason to doubt the legality of this vote, and i believe it to be a fair vote. so the rest is fiction as far as i am concerned.

__________________


The Queen
"Those who perpetrate these brutal acts against innocent people should know that they will not change our way of life,"
Atrocities such as these simply reinforce our sense of community

TheFeniX
"Guns don't kill people: effeminate men in green tunics do"

Root

Note : In this post, use of the term SO19 refers specifically to the metropolitan police unit that officialy has this designation, and is not a general reference to armed police officers.

No the vote rigging is usually confined to local elections and postal votes. As a judge said the other day, it's all three major parties that engage in that activity.

I meant that the result of the vote the police took happened to coincide with what the politicians want, so we get the illusion of them having choice. If the result had been contrary to what the politicians wanted (in this case to have a fully armed police force), then the police would NOT get what they wanted.

With regard to the guns in cars, unless they're in the boot, which I don't believe is what you're saying, there's simply nowhere to stash them in the car. Between the regular car things like handbrake, ashtray, radio etc, and all the police comms gear and such like, I've never been able to identify a place where they could be stored.

If you're right, do you have a theory, or know for fact, why beat officers aren't armed with these same 9mm's? The reason I ask is that one day an officer will be in a response vehicle, the next day they will be on foot patrol or seconded to CID or pretty much anything else. I wish you were right, but I firmly believe you are wrong. The only other possibility, as you live in london, is that the Met operates totally differently from county police forces in this regard. You certainly have more armed officers on duty at any one time, than many county forces have in total, and that's just SO19 I'm talking about.

I still believe you're misinformed. Many good police officers still don't have the right mental aptitude to use a firearm as part of their duties. If you give these people guns, accidents are going to happen. When a police officer in the UK fires their weapon, intentionally or by accident, they are suspended immediately, and investigated by the police complaints authority. That's SOP, there are no exceptions. A clean kill in a situation where that is exactly the action that is required is treated the same way as the guy on the queens train who's gun fired whilst in his holster in the middle of the night. Suspension and investigation.

Units such as SO19 take this into account by having a big enough budget to employ enough officers that this doesn't cause a problem. I believe something like 60 officers from SO19, are on suspension at any one time. I've seen police officers make it out of the police station to the area they are supposed to patrol once in 3 months, because of paperwork, court appearences, secondment to drugs raids etc. One day in 3 months doing the work they're supposed to be doing. You give them a gun and subsequently have to suspend them for that gun being fired for any reason, and you're never going to see a policeman.

If they want to include all the mental testing that you have to go through to get certified to carry as a standard part of the recruitment process across the country, then I'm all for giving them guns. It's all very well making it an offence to assault a police officer, but that law is useless if it doesn't stop people assaulting them. Cing has all these wonderful Heinlein quotes in his sig, and the one about an armed society being a polite one is rather apt. Have a completely armed police force, that is fully competent in the use of tools such as sidearms, SMG's, rifles etc, and I'll feel safer. Even more safe if they let civilians pay lots of money to go on the police course, and give them a licence to carry concealed if they can pass. They drum safety into you on the course. You're only supposed to hurt your target, if that's the required course of action. No one else is supposed to get hurt, including the user. If they drum that sort of safety into law abiding citizens, who are mentally competant, and suitably accurate, I'll wager that muggings and assaults suddenly become a downward trend. I believe this will happen, because it's the case in American states when carrying a concealed weapon is permitted.

Root

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DudeMan

i neglected to read the last paragraph of your writing there, when you start talking about training i have no idea,

but i have seen first hand this compartment, i am not wrong, the reason a beat offcier does not ave one, i would assume one of two things. you have to place a request in to the chief (via radio) to authorise the drawing of weapons, meaning until you have specific authority, they stay under lock and key. the second would actually be carrying on from this, you cannot secure it on a police mans body,

dont forget the met have operation trident which specifically targets firearms offenses. so it may well be widespread across the met as opposed to other places.

i may very well be talking about the met, its the police force i am most in touch with, i dont know about rural poluce or other countys....

but i will re itterate i am not wrong, police cars (in london at least, i would assume across the country) have this built in.

__________________


The Queen
"Those who perpetrate these brutal acts against innocent people should know that they will not change our way of life,"
Atrocities such as these simply reinforce our sense of community

TheFeniX
"Guns don't kill people: effeminate men in green tunics do"

Root

Hmmm... you are probably right actually. A superintendant or above has to authorise firearms officers to be deployed. I believe you've seen an SO19 vehicle, or that it's a met thing.

Root

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DudeMan

SO19 response vehicles have these yes, but they are also equiped with an mp5 sub machine gun in the boot, this was a stand off, with a believed armed (although turned out not) suspect, they didnt bring anything out,

i have also spoken to members of the met that say alot of police cars are armed with this, ... it could be prodominantly met.

__________________


The Queen
"Those who perpetrate these brutal acts against innocent people should know that they will not change our way of life,"
Atrocities such as these simply reinforce our sense of community

TheFeniX
"Guns don't kill people: effeminate men in green tunics do"

Wintermute

Good. I the, the voter, get to decide, via my democratically elected representitive, how much power I want to give to the police my taxes employ. If they got to choose we would be in a police state.

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Wintermute

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CingularDuality

Whoa, there... That is so off base I can't believe it came from you, Wintermute. Being armed or not has little to do with how much "power" the police have. It also has nothing to do with a "police state". A gun is simply a tool with which they can more efficiently do their job. You can't have it both ways. Either you have an effective unarmed police force or you don't. Letting them choose to carry firearms in no way changes their authority nor their "power" over the people.

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

DudeMan

no you are off base, although i do not agree the vote was rigged by any means, the politicans are our representatives, it would make their job a whole lot easier if we had to be in at 10.pm every night, if we were all electronically tagged, ect ect... but the politicains put in place by our democratic right stop this.

he was not saying ohhh if they have the gun we will be in a police statte, although it seems with your love of the gun, you cant see past that.

__________________


The Queen
"Those who perpetrate these brutal acts against innocent people should know that they will not change our way of life,"
Atrocities such as these simply reinforce our sense of community

TheFeniX
"Guns don't kill people: effeminate men in green tunics do"

Root

Obviously I can't speak for Wintermute, but I believe his point was that if the police could make the decison to carry guns, as opposed to the politicians, that would be massive cause for concern. Police officers are employed, not elected.

Root

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CingularDuality

Ah, I see now. Dudeman was right. I keyed in on the gun issue. You're saying that his point is that if the police get to make any decisions without elected oversight, then it's a police state?

I still disagree. Over here, knives are not issued to police by any police department that I know of. Almost every cop that I know carries a knife. Does their decision to carry a tool turn my country into a police state? A gun is simply a tool. Just like a knife. Just like a set of handcuffs. Just like a flashlight.

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

Root

I guess in some respects it IS a gun issue. In many peoples minds, guns are dangerous weapons, which most if not all of us here know is rubbish. The discrimination between guns and knives is probably, at least in part, due to the fact that in most peoples minds, you have to get right up to a target to use a knife, whereas you can hit someone with a gun at a larger range. Clearly throwing knives aren't in the thinking of those people. Perhaps their also thinking that the greater the range, the greater the probability of missing the target?

My concern remains the mental competancy of those given the guns, and the ability to shoot and hit the target as opposed to hitting me. Criminals should be afraid that they will be caught when they commit crime, AND afraid of the consequences of being caught. An entirely armed force would go some way to making them afraid of being caught. I still maintain that this should be done only because the people tell their elected polictians that this is what they require.

Root

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DudeMan

actually the police here are not allowed to carry knives, unless you class a small swiss army knife a knife, they have to abide by the same laws on knives the rest of us do, somthing like only 2 inch blade ect ect... so they dont carry knifes for their job,

same as guns are illeagle, and im sorry cookie but i disagree, you think we have our laws because the general public are stupid.... spoken like a true conservative, the general public are not stupid, and too suggest that is wrong, the issue with guns is that we do not believe in the use of deadly force as a part of law enforcement. (unless in extreme cases which we have our trained officers for that is the reason we need such permissions to actually take them from under lock and key.)

to simply suggest that the entire population plus our politicians (and for that matter the police since they voted against carrying sidearms) are stupid is ilinformed. its not because we consider them dangerous. its a matter of how we enforce our laws and at this time we CHOOSE to do so (on the most part) without the use of deadly force. did we debate taking away our CS Gas because it was merely dangerous, no we debated this because a man died as a result of using it, because it was used and a man died as a result.

im sorry i am not buying everyone is ignorant to the dangers of guns so we dont have them.

__________________


The Queen
"Those who perpetrate these brutal acts against innocent people should know that they will not change our way of life,"
Atrocities such as these simply reinforce our sense of community

TheFeniX
"Guns don't kill people: effeminate men in green tunics do"