Should the Police be Armed?
In a world full of violence and armed criminals, instinctively it seems right that the ultimate means of law and order in a country - the police force - is armed. The logic appears to work: if the police are armed, criminals - afraid of being shot - are far less likely to commit crimes. Indeed, in countries in which the police aren 't armed, gun crime has doubled over the last decade as has the number of people killed and injured by guns. Add to this the increased likelihood of a terrorist attack in Britain at the hands of groups like the so-called Islamic State, and we suddenly appear to have a fairly compelling case to arm the British police as a necessary step in the defence of our people.
Yet there are significant problems with this idea. If the police are armed, then logically, criminals will have to match them to defend themselves. It is interesting that the police force themselves do not …show more content…
There has been an increase in examples of police shooting to kill when rapid response firearms units are called in. In 2009 Keith Richard was shot and killed in County Durham. He was shot by an armed police officer after he fired his crossbow out of a window at the back of the house. The police, instead of negotiating and de-escalating the situation, they took the drastic route out and shot the innocent man dead. In London, 2005, an innocent man, Jean Charles De Menezes, was shot after being mistaken for a terrorist. Before the police owned up to the injustice they claimed that he was directly linked to the bombing of three tube trains and a bus, despite there being no evidence. There have been many cases where the police have unnecessarily shot and killed innocent people: Mark Duggan, Anthony Grainger, Azelle Rodney and many more. Would you like to live in a world where innocent people are shot daily? If we armed the police routinely, would this list of names increase? Quite
In a world full of violence and armed criminals, instinctively it seems right that the ultimate means of law and order in a country - the police force - is armed. The logic appears to work: if the police are armed, criminals - afraid of being shot - are far less likely to commit crimes. Indeed, in countries in which the police aren 't armed, gun crime has doubled over the last decade as has the number of people killed and injured by guns. Add to this the increased likelihood of a terrorist attack in Britain at the hands of groups like the so-called Islamic State, and we suddenly appear to have a fairly compelling case to arm the British police as a necessary step in the defence of our people.
Yet there are significant problems with this idea. If the police are armed, then logically, criminals will have to match them to defend themselves. It is interesting that the police force themselves do not …show more content…
There has been an increase in examples of police shooting to kill when rapid response firearms units are called in. In 2009 Keith Richard was shot and killed in County Durham. He was shot by an armed police officer after he fired his crossbow out of a window at the back of the house. The police, instead of negotiating and de-escalating the situation, they took the drastic route out and shot the innocent man dead. In London, 2005, an innocent man, Jean Charles De Menezes, was shot after being mistaken for a terrorist. Before the police owned up to the injustice they claimed that he was directly linked to the bombing of three tube trains and a bus, despite there being no evidence. There have been many cases where the police have unnecessarily shot and killed innocent people: Mark Duggan, Anthony Grainger, Azelle Rodney and many more. Would you like to live in a world where innocent people are shot daily? If we armed the police routinely, would this list of names increase? Quite