I agree that British police should be armed. Though this may have to do with the idea that large numbers of police officers killed in shootings are shot with their own weapon. I wouldn’t really worry about the risk of martial artists though. Police don’t fight fair, and will gladly club/mace you or just call in 5 more people to pile on you.
I now see the merit of Nebagram’s point.
Cheers.
You’ll solve very little by arming the police: You’ll merely escalate the conflict and get even more people shot. There’s a whole lot less shot in countries where the police aren’t generally armed than in countries where they are.
this doesn’t prove anything. this might sound like sinistral, but correlation doesn’t suggest causation. you’ll need to qualify this in a number of ways before it approaches anything resembleming accuracy.
I haven’t said that it is the cause but it might very well be a cause. It is hardly disputable that more weapons in a society leads to more violence. There certainly is a lot more evidence that says it does than that it doesn’t.
Besides, there really isn’t any need to generally arm the police, so why should we take the risk? We have special squads. I do think they’re more than enough and much more capable at handling the situations where weapons turn out to be needed than armed ordinary police would.
But you do not have to qualify any of your statements in this thread? Let us gaze upon some examples of your quality back-up:
Qualify how police having guns will make there less criminals with guns, or make the criminals with guns less violent. A cop having a gun would not necessarily stop John from shooting his wife Mary. Unless the cop knew it was going to happen and was there to stop John, it is in fact very unlikely armed police would have any purchase on the situation at all.
No, it’s a point about what Police with guns do. Qualify how this situation needs to be further understood. In fact, qualify first what about it is not understood.
Qualify how this should change the reasoning. I believe the point Hades was trying to make with generic insult was that Nebagram’s argument made no sense, as if he were viewing the world as if it were G.I. Joe. Terrorists can not just be shot in the thead, they need to be found, first, which is generally the trouble. Qualify, thus, how being in an area that has had terrorist attacks make the solution of arming police any more feasible.
Now, to further qualify Nulani’s point, just use logic. About fifth-grade level should suffice, if you can manage it. So, John would like to shoot his wife Mary. Chances are, the mere existance of armed police would not stop him, do you agree? Because here in America, we have armed police, and this still happens all the time. Now, John does the deed and Mary is dead. Now, John didn’t think to silence his gun, right? So a neighbour hears a shot, and the police are called. They arrive and John comes out of the house with a gun. By common police logic, John will most likely be taken as a threat, and could very well be shot. Hence Nulani’s point about violence only escalating. It doesn’t save Mary, it just gets John shot before he even has a trial.
Have there been any studies that counted how many crimes in England in a given period could have been prevented by armed police, and compared that to the number of crimes where being armed would have made no difference, and the number of crimes where violence was escalated by armed police? This argument is not going to make any progress, the way it’s being conducted. “Guns can prevent crime,” one side argues, and, “Guns escalate violence,” argues the other – both true, in different contexts. The question is, which policemen should be armed, and to what degree should they be armed, in order to maximize the crime prevented and minimize violence? Until people start thinking in these terms, rather than taking absolute stances as they are now, the argument will move nowhere.
All the police I know are taught martial arts, and I know a fair few police. They’re also given firearms training, but just don’t carry weapons on the beat, only bringing them out in emergencies.
I’d also like to point out that a lot of British people are currently very jingoistic, and racist. Unfortunately I know too many people who would rather simply shoot all immigrants because of terrorism. It’s sad. Oh, and one of them is my Dad.
i was not in my little remarks making a direct statistical assertion, as nulani did. i said merely the equivilent of “it’s probably a bad idea to have 10% or less law enforcement officers armed with pistols”
if the goal of arming cops were to decrease the amount of violent criminals, you would make a good point. however, i believe there will always be a certain amount of violent criminals who don’t fucking care about shooting people if they need to. we have police officers to shoot these people back. besides this, armed police probably do a great measure of good in keeping criminals’ funny business out of mine and your’s faces. if anything, it makes me more comfortable with walking around the east side of cleveland (poorest part of the poorest major city in the united states) at night, and reasonably so, in my imagination.
also, you seem, by your statements, to imply that criminals only use guns because the police here are armed with them as well. i would suggest that the reason criminals use guns in the first place is that it’s simply much easier to use against the unsuspecting victim of crime than say, a katana. certainly, when the cops are armed with guns because of this, it must only make it a requirement for any other competant criminal who would otherwise be fine with a battle-axe to step up to the glock level.
No, it’s a point about what Police with guns do. Qualify how this situation needs to be further understood. In fact, qualify first what about it is not understood.
you obviously do not realize we are referring to the specific instance of Jean-Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian immigrant shot dead under mysterious circumstances by the police after fleeing from them after leaving a building that was under surveillence because it was also the home to one of the Ts involved in the subway bombings there. even this account is probably innaccurate because the event is shaded in mystery. qualified enough for you?
police with guns certainly make tragic mistakes every once in a while. there’s no disputing this. however, if you outright ban cops from carrying guns because of the occasional Menezes and Dialous it’s my guess that you’ll see greater harm because of it than good.
No, Sil. Wow.
I want to live in the world some of you guys live in, where cops don’t have to have guns, and criminals co-operate with authority.
I want to live in a world where teenagers don’t presume to know more about trends in crime than the british police administration itself.
you’ll find that more than just teenagers have opinions about things.
also, i presume that you yourself presume to know more about foreign policy than say, the bush administration?
who doesnt lolamirite
Your presumption is wrong as usual. I sure as hell know how to be pissed off when murderers remain in power, though.
X wing makes some very good points.
Silhouette’s comparison is invalid because the 2 entities, their workings and the motivations behind each are just so different.
That’s exactly what the special squads are for.
Actually, you made some statements just as definite and implicity factual as she did. She said merely the equivalent of ‘guns dont’ really necessarily help help, and it’s probably a bad idea to give everyone guns.’
Oh, so the cops are just a big gang, like the crips and bloods only with badges, whose goal is to increase violence by fighting fire with fire. Which, if you’ll look, only burns the fucking house down faster. BLOOD FOR BLOOD!
Wanna give me some facts about this, or just keep blowing hot air with little logic besides your person beliefs of your own safety behind it?
No. No, I do not. I have never said that. I have never used any argument that uses any words that in any combination of their dictionary meaning translates to that. I said armed police wouldn’t stop him, and gave the fact that there are plenty of murders in place with armed police as my back up. That doesn’t mean armed police cause the murders, it means they do not prevent them. I guess you couldn’t manage that fifth-grade logic. Pity. I had high hopes.
BRILLIANT!11!1!1
Yeah. Always have better toys than your enemy. Again, this is no surprising leap of logical ability.
I know exactly what you’re referring to. How is asking you to qualify your statement saying I don’t know what you’re talking about. Even if I know, I may want to see if you can actually back up what you’re saying, or if you just spout senseless, neanderthall rhetoric.
I don’t see what ‘mystery’ there is here, and why ‘mystery’ would make innaccurate accounts, or how this qualifies it as a low blow and not understood. From what it seems, he wasn’t armed and there was no evidence he was a terrorist. None of that is shaded by mystery. Then qualify why condemning him being shot is un-called for given the mystery. Circumstantial evidentince doesn’t count.
I’m not disagreeing with you that it may be a premature judgement, I’m just making a point about you qualifying your arguments.
Sometimes they’re ordered to make tragic mistakes.
That’s a fine belief, but if you want to argue it as a fact, show some evidence behind it.
Hades, the British police may know more, but not be acting appropriately; in police states, the cops aren’t heavily armed because of anything to do with crime tendancies, really. Then again, I really don’t foresee England become a fascist police state based on one petty London politician’s decisions, so this isn’t a big point.
Xwing, I’m saying that arming the whole police force won’t lead to much of anything but more fuck-ups and possible more government-ordered massacres. Arming certain sections of the police force could lower crime, but won’t necessarily.
Sil, the logic doesn’t follow. Again, try and raise yourself a little higher on the logic bar, perhaps all the way up to If/Then statements.
Sil, the logic doesn’t follow. Again, try and raise yourself a little higher on the logic bar, perhaps all the way up to If/Then statements.
you really haven’t used anything i would call logic in any of these posts of yours. i find your self-appointed role as arbiter of logical discourse laughable.
You both probably have very little idea what you are talking about.