British Police should be armed

Yesterday Greater Manchester Police Constables Nicola Hughes, 23, and Fiona Bone ,32, were killed in a gun and grenade attack after being called out to a bogus burglary.

Their deaths have re-opened the debate as to why British police don’t have guns as standard procedure, which make us one of a handful of nations including, Norway, New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland and a few others whose officers aren’t armed.

For me this has to change, arming the police would make their lives safer, and in the case of PC’s Hughes and Bone given them a fighting chance after being lured into an ambush by an armed nutcase.

Sir Peter Fahy, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police would rather keep the status quo saying:

“Sadly we know from the experience in America and other countries that having armed officers certainly does not mean, sadly, that police officers do not end up getting shot.”

Which to me is a totally redundant statement, as I doubt there are many out there dim-witted enough to believe that arming our police forces would result in no officers being shot or killed in a gun related incident whatsoever, but it would give them a chance and not have to face a situation where they are confronted with armed personnel and find themselves totally defenceless, with their only option to call for a specialised armed unit, and hope they arrive in time to back them up.

Some say that being confronted by the site of armed police patrolling the streets would be intimidating, I’d like to know exactly how, as they would be well trained and qualified public servants there for our protection, what is intimidating about that, if anything it would be comforting.

While the current economic climate makes it unlikely that police forces in Britain will be armed anytime soon, due to budget cuts and the cost of the training programmes that would be needed, hopefully this debate won’t fade back into the background until another shooting incident occurs, and that the police and government become more pro-active in at least entertaining the idea and weighing up the pros and cons of arming the police force in Britain.