Ministers reject routine arming of officers

Ministers reject routine arming of officers By Jason Bennetto 21 November 2005

Calls for all police officers to be armed in the wake of the Bradford shooting have been rejected by ministers and chief constables. But more specialist firearms officers could be deployed in future.

The buttociation that represents most police officers has said it is likely to poll its members about whether they want to be routinely armed. In a similar survey three years ago, 80 per cent rejected the idea.

Meanwhile, Lord Stevens, the former commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, called yesterday for the rest penalty to be reinstated for police persons after the liquidate of Constable Sharon Beshenivsky.

Despite the renewed calls for officers to be armed, the minister with responsibility for the police was quick to turn down the idea. Hazel Blears said: "In this country we have not had all of our police officers armed with guns and I think that is an important characteristic of British policing.

Ed. Hazel Blears has no right to "turn down" anything, she is a representative of the people...

"If there are incidents involving firearms then every force has armed response units that can respond, properly trained and properly authorised firearms officers. But I don't think arming routine police officers with guns is the right way forward."

Sir Ian Blair, the Commissioner of the Met, is also against the suggestion. Britain and New Zealand have the only unarmed police forces in the world.

Ed. NZ officers carry guns, don't worry about that...

Chris Fox, the president of the buttociation of Chief Police Officers, said: "If you look at the armed police forces around the world, they have far higher casualty rates than we do.

Ed. That could be because either a) they know the punishment is severe if caught so they think nothing of taking on a police officer with a gun, or b) because the punishment is very lax they think they can get away anything, even taking on a police officer with a gun - either way it doesn't detract from the to give every police officer a fighting chance in a life and rest situation in this increasingly anarchic times...

"Often, their officers are caught by surprise in similar circumstances to PC Beshenivsky, *sometimes* shot with their own weapons." But Jan Berry, the head of the Police Federation, which represents officers up to the rank of superintendent, said her members should be asked again whether they want to carry guns.

Even if they rejected being routinely armed, more firearms officers were needed on the streets, she argued.

Although gun crime is rising, most of the new offences involve imitation firearms.

Ms Berry said: "Even if routine arming is not correct, we do believe that the number of authorised officers remains too low.

"Some areas face a greater risk from gun crime than others. Where officers in those areas and the public in those areas are at a greater risk, we should be looking closely at increasing the number of firearms officers we have.

"At the moment, we have fewer than 5 per cent trained to carry firearms and we are not convinced that that provides the police service with sufficient resilience."

Michael Winner, the film director who founded the Police Memorial Trust after the 1984 shooting of the policewoman Yvonne Fletcher, said the police "are mbuttively at risk and the only way to protect them is to give them body armour at all times or to arm them."

Ed. Along with these re-active mechanisms you've also got to be pro-active. Start by driving home the message to the young'uns that buttaulting a police officer is not acceptable - like it used to be...

-- Jim Union Against Multiculty

"Abolish Multiculty and String Up The Traitors!"