Another Bobbies with guns question

Great Debates
41

I mentioned this only to oppose pkbites suggesting e.g. that unarmed British police were being massacred.
I am aware we have discussed gun control in other threads.

However, what is your evidence that ‘people being able to defend themselves’ (I assume you mean being armed) does reduce school massacres?

From here, I note 109 such massacres in the heavily armed US, and 1 in the practically unarmed UK.
Our population is smaller than yours (by about 6 - 1), but you’ll still have to explain how your ‘defence system’ works…

42

As I just posted, our population is about 6 times less than yours. (Our country is far smaller, so we are pretty crowded.)

When we have discussed gun deaths previously, this has been taken into account. The US has a higher adjusted death rate for murder.
I already posted the depressing statistics on relative school killings.

43

Yes, it helps a whole lot! You’re ignoring way to many things that I’m too tired to get into right now.

Can you fucking not read or what? I never mentioned anything about “British Society” nor did I mention anything about gun crime, gun rights, the citizenry at large being armed, cops being shot at, or any of the stupid shit you’re going off about. I asked what a English cop does when faced with a knife. At least e-logic, in his otherwise self righteous post, gave a plausible theory. You’re just plain off your nut.

44

In terms of density, the US has way fewer people per square mile. Think of it this way - the US population is a little less than 5 times that of the UK. The UK, area-wise, is a little smaller than Oregon. Even the most populous US state, California, has only around half the population of the UK, and is considerably larger.

In fact, I believe the UK is one of the most densely populated nations in the world, especially if one leaves out “city-states” like Singapore and Hong Kong.

London is the size of LA, population-wise. The only city in the US that is bigger is New York. Manchester and Birmingham would look like huge cities in the US, along the lines of Philadelphia and Houston.

So if the theory is that population density causes a high crime rate (and thus a high police fatality rate) we would expect these rates to be much higher in the UK. That isn’t the case.

45

The number of gun murders in the US (as opposed to legitimate shooting by such as the police) outstrips the UK by something around 17 to 1, and that is accounting for the differance in population sizes.

If you add in what would be termed as legitimate shootings and non-crime, or even suicides, the ratio goes up further still.

The US does not realise quite how violent it is as a society, the number of roads deaths, rapes, knife deaths are also several times the rate per 100k than ours, and yet in the UK, our rates are higher than most of our European neighbours.

I do believe we tend to have more incidents per capita of personal violence(actually its true and the numbers bear it out), such as assaults, and not to make excuses, these are largely alchohol related.

It would appear to me that we in the UK have plenty of potential for more fatal violence, and in that sort of background I cannot understand why anyone would advocate wider gun ownership in the UK on the justification that

Given the current culture in the UK, enabling more UK citizens to own guns is a rather stupid thing to say.

Even so, the arguments for or against gun ownership in the US are subjects for US citizens, and when it comes to the UK, we are quite capable of running our own affairs thank you very much, so keep your interfering noses out.

We do defend ourselves, sometimes unsuccessfully, but at least we haven’t all got lethal means - seems to me that in the UK, those most likely to carry guns are those who have something to prove, we would take decades to engender a culture of responsible gun ownership, and the US experience show us that there is quite some way to go even though guns have been readily available for generations.

The NRA is a set of propagandist liars, manipulating fugures to get the sort of number they seek to prop up their disreputable material.

They will quote a figure for UK gun violence to show that such crime is common here and so justify their stance onf gun crime, yet over here a crime is reported as gun related if the weapon was imitation, air gun, or even just suspected - such as a threat from an unseen weapon or just an innacurrate report from a person calling the police.

The true number of real loaded and shootable weapons in the UK is actually comparitively tiny.

The anti gun lobby is hardly any better either, as it selects particularly awful years in the US to compare with favourable years in the UK, to produce a wider variance in gun crime. So you will see them compare 1992 US gun murders with 2002 UK gun crime figures.

If you are a US poster and you have some outlook on gun ownership either for or against, then I suggest you stop using figures from other countries, and make your points on their own merits on the basis of figures you have in the US.

It is incredibly rude and arrogant of you to make definative statements on the law and order aspects of our country and what is good for us, when you have almost zero knowledge of our culture, particularly in one part of it (gun crime) which is heavily politicised and tainted by propaganda.

Of course the reverse is also true.

46

What does an English cop do when faced with a knife?

Well for starters he doesn’t pull a gun and shoot the guy with the knife.

What he/she does do is reason with the knife holder, yes, reason, it usually works believe it or not. Our cops are trained to deal with this sort of situation and it makes far more sense to a criminal to throw down the knife and surrender and face a few years in jail than it does to attack the cop and face a hell of lot of pokey time.

Our courts take very dim view of anybody attacking a police officer, anyone stupid enough to go along that road is in for a rude shock

Criminals may be daft but they sure aint fucking altogether gormless

47

Not very often. It’s rare enough that it makes national headline news for days when it does happen (see the recent murder of the policewoman in Yorkshire).

As for what they do when faced with a knife. Most (all?) police these days must wear stab vests when out in public. They also carry telescopic asps and are trained in self defence, with a few forces now also carrying pepper spray etc. All forces also have an armed response vehicle permanently out on the streets.

There’s also a tendency for police to always patrol in pairs, at least from what I can see.

My Mum and Dad were in the GMP force, although that doesn’t count as much of a cite.

48

I also think there’s a severe culture clash, with regards this thread.

The idea that someone need be armed to garner respect is an alien concept to most British people.

49

I agree with you. I also think that the factual answer is simply that police officers are trained to deal with situations they are likely to encounter. Guns aren’t really one of those situations.

We might as well ask “Why aren’t US police trained in basic bomb disposal?” I’d imagine if a US police officer encounters a bomb, they are trained to leave it the hell alone and call for someone who knows what they’re doing. Same with UK police and guns.

50

pkbites. Ratchet it down a notch. This is General Questions(although it’s rapidly becoming a GD). Attack the post, not the poster.

samclem GQ Moderator

51

…and now that I"ve reread the whole thread, off to Great Debates.

samclem

52

This is no doubt the survey that Chez Guevara cited, but here it is from the horse’s mouth: Police Federation of England and Wales policy on arms.

Despite this:

Since this thread is now in GD, I’ll state, along the lines of what has been stated by every Brit that’s responded so far: we do things differently here, and though it’s not perfect, it appears to work, for whatever reason, in that our armed murder (and overall murder) rates per capita are extremely low compared to the US. We don’t want to jeopardise that, and nor, clearly, do the cops.

53

This does surprise me. No weapons training at all?

I would think that Bobbies at the least get trained to recognize different types of firearms. This is important information if the special teams have to be called in.

Would the average British policeman know the difference between a revolver and a pistol? I suspect they would, but I may be wrong.

54

Just to clarify, police in the UK undergo basic firearms awareness training as part of their induction process.

This training is also offered to civilian support staff.

We’re also not completely unaware of guns in the UK - most people can tell you the difference between a handgun and a rifle / shotgun (although I’m not sure why knowing the difference between a revolver and a pistol would necessarily help?).

I’ve been clay-pigeon shooting, and played with air rifles, and I’ve watched enough TV to be able to tell you the difference between the main types of guns. I would be confident that most police recruits would too.

If all you’re doing is phoning in an urgent call for armed support, I can’t see you’d need much more info than that.

And in terms of “making a gun safe”, keeping it pointed at the floor prior to locking it in the boot of a car will do the job.

55

Alright, agreed. I was getting quite a bit agitated there.
But not entirely unjustified. I’m talking in strict terms of defensive tactic techniques used by police and he keeps replying as though I’m posting things that I clearly am not. Very irritating.

I’ve had extensive training in disarming a subject (and “reasoning” with them was not one of them!:rolleyes: Good Lord. The next in-service class I have to take I’m going to print that post out and show it to the instructor. He’ll shit himself laughing!) These are emergency techniques that are nowhere near as effective as using a firearm.

The differences of defensive tactics and attitudes of British police as compared to U.S. cops appear to be like the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing it.

:smack: Oh, wait. That’s what they have to do.

56

Meh. Seems to work for us. Whatever.

57

But don’t all, or most US Police take training to defuse a situation? Probably a lot of it?

Maybe ‘reasoning’ is not the correct term.

58

I think it goes without saying that the British copper is respected both in the UK and also in other countries worldwide for his/her ability and willingness to face crooks without being armed.
I can’t think of any other country where its police force is not routinely armed, I may be wrong, if so I expect I’ll be told.

Incidentally pkbites your sarcasm is unwarranted

59

"Yet official statistics show gun crime has risen for the last five years: firearms incidents increased by six per cent in the past year alone."cite

You’re catching up.

60

And yet one wouldn’t be so disingenuous as to suggest causation, rather than correlation, between the handgun ban and the rise in gun crime. Or if one were to suggest such a thing (as I’ve seen on the SDMB before), please can the mechanism of such causation be explained?