They typically aren’t, I agree. But they do suffer quite badly from “expert bias” – i.e. “let the experts handle it.”
Then the actual police should not be armed, either. The average policeman is not nearly well-trained enough to meet your criteria.
That’s pretty much the argument for the fact that the British police are not armed, except for more highly trained units. That seems to work pretty well over there. They still have the occasional police shooting (both of and by police), but it’s vanishingly rare.
The average policeman *should *be considerably better trained to handle a situation like that than the general public is. If that is not the case, you have a serious problem with your police force and should work on that.
Training budgets are not unlimited, nor is training time. Given that the overwhelming majority of police officers will never fire their guns in the line of duty (most won’t ever even draw), police administrators apparently consider the present level of training to be adequate.
I am not really familiar with the level of training that US police officers receive. Yet I find it hard to believe that they are not being prepared for situations where they have to draw their weapon - especially on how to behave in order to avoid endangering innocent bystanders. (If anyone here has inside knowledge on policework, I’d like to hear their view.)
I believe that a member of the general public is far less likely to recieve such training and thus much more at risk of making the wrong call in a tense situation.
I worked part-time as a deputy sheriff for over 10 years. In Pennsylvania, which is a pretty typical state in this respect, a cop gets 40 hours of firearms training during academy. Most police will receive no further training during their careers nor any mandated practice time. They will qualify once or twice a year. Qualification basically means firing 50 shots and getting most of them on the paper. It is pass/fail, not scored.
Hiker, you might be interested in the research done by the Force Science Institute. They’ve found out some very interesting things about police work, use of force, and related subjects–the effect of stress on perception and memory, and things like that. They put out a free email newsletter.
From a recent issue:
http://www.forcescience.org/fsnews/292.html
This one deals specifically on issues with how the police are trained.
http://www.forcescience.org/fsnews/288.html
They focus on police-related issues, but many of their findings apply to anybody who gets in a fight, or faces a very stressful situation.
Thanks for the feedback. 40 hours does not seem like very much. I understand that this is practical training, i.e. learning how to operate a gun and hit something with it, right? Is there any situational training beyond that? By that I mean are officers prepared for making the right call in a tight situation? Do they learn strategies on how to get a situation under control without pulling their gun? I suppose that a very large share of conflicts that officers get into are not with career criminals but rather with drunkards, violent husbands and the like. Do you get trained on how to resolve these situations without anybody getting shot?
Even more importantly, do officers learn how to assess a situation in terms of whether it is “safe” to fire their weapon? Of course there is common sense that will tell you not to fire at a fleeing suspect in a crowded street. But is that formalized? Do you get advice like “Do not shoot at a carjacked car, unless you positively know that there is not an infant in the backseat.”?
But again, WHY does every police officer need to carry a gun?
I suspect, fundamentally, it’s the same reason every American needs the right to bear a gun: because it’s more a matter of identity than anything else, and no amount of discussion will change people’s deeply-rooted belief that policemen must carry guns.
If you follow the link I gave, it will take you to Lackawanna College’s page for the their police academy. You can read there about what the new police learn. Lackawanna College’s program is typical for academies run at colleges and universities all over the state. A graduate is considered qualified to be a police officer in Pennsylvania. Most municipalities hire only pre-trained personnel because they want the new hire to hit the street right away. The state cops have their own academy which is somewhat more like military boot camp.
I believe that as a representative of the state’s authority a police officer should have the option to assert that authority by using force - as the absolutely last resort in emergency situations. Doubtlessly my attitude is biased by the fact that I live in a country where the police are armed (Germany).
But when you allow the police to bear arms you have to make sure that they know perfectly well when to use them and when not to. The fact that you have an armed police force does not need to lead to a large number of shooting incidents involving the police. In 2013, the last year for which we have a statistic, German police have fired a total of 42 shots at people killing 8. For a country of 82 million people that seems fairly moderate. I attribute that moderate number to a large degree to the fact that the officers receive extensive and regular training.
What good is a pot-metal zip gun going to do anybody?
(You are NOT giving some freeloader parasite anything better than that with MY tax money, you lousy pinko socialist red commie, you!)
Yeah, these are commons sense and sure to be wildly popular :rolleyes:
Note: This isn’t a comprehensive list
Common sense:
Registration and licensing for use
Background checks
Industry standard safety devices
Licensed sellers only
Increased penalties for a crime committed while using a gun
Age restrictions
Many of these are already in place for other types of items. They are fairly unobtrusive. Nobody is seriously crying about how being denied something because of failure to meet these standards reduces anyone’s rights. Some even exist for guns specifically but are not uniform so loopholes occur. This should be the base standard legislation that should exist
Slightly restrictive:
Some gun types banned
Increased license fees, training requirements
Modification restrictions
Magazine size limits
Purchase limits
This would still allow most people to have most types of guns. Self defense would not be an issue. Nothing in our culture would change significantly, or the change will only affect a small number of people.
More restrictive:
Handgun ban
Storage requirements
Law enforcement ok for concealed carry
Ban on open carry with LEO/hunting exceptions
More limits on purchase and ammo amounts
Some of these laws are in place for specific areas/situations. For example, you can’t open carry in court no matter how many licenses you have, the proposed ban would just extend that to all public areas. Beyond this set of laws is just a total gun ban except for law enforcement.
Don’t mention it, sweety.
I’d like to take some of these libtards and drop them off in some nice gun free zones in parts of New York City with which I am all too familiar some night and come back for them the next morning. But all that would be left of them would be some gizzard bones.
UPDATE: MATT DRUDGE CHALLENGES OBAMA ‘GIVE UP YOUR GUNS’ #DISARMOBAMA
News icon calls on President & Hillary to relinquish Secret Service protection
http://www.infowars.com/matt-drudge-challenges-obama-give-up-your-guns/
THIS is what I’ve been saying. Let’s see these ruling reptiles put their money where their mouth is. That goes for you too, Pope.
“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
- Thomas Jefferson, Commonplace Book (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria), 1774-1776
Too complicated for the mindless and coddled libtards to comprehend.
Most of that is PC bullshit. Registration and licensing for use - all free men should be permitted to be armed unless there is a very good reason for them not to be, like a record of committing violent crimes…but NOT up to the whim of scumbag politicians!!!
Safety devices - like what? Gun locks and trigger locks and whatever other idiot devices the minds of the ruling reptiles can think up in order to make the weapon inoperable in an emergency situation when it is needed?
Increased penalties - How about increased penalties - like zero tolerance - for all violent crimes? What f’ing difference does it make if you were kicked to death by a mob of criminals vs. getting threatened with a gun? The same BS focus on guns - because disarming the honest people is the agenda!!!
And while we’re at it, how about zero tolerance for crooked lying politicians - but that would mean that just about every single one of the career criminals in the white house and the senate and congress would be standing on a scaffold instead of pontificating about how honest people should be disarmed and rendered defenseless whilst strutting around in their 5 thousand dollar suits surrounded by a phalanx of hired guns in dark glasses!
Only someone who is opposed to any rules on guns at all would say that. All of those things are useful tools useful to curb the spread of illegal or misuse of weapons, or allows law enforcement to catch those responsible in case the gun is misused. Given the rest of your posts on this thread, I don’t expect good reasons for anything you support so I won’t bother responding to you anymore.