15 ms·

> Even in the UK and in Norway police officers are allowed to carry gun's but they rarely do, and rarely have to. Not sure about Norway, but in the case of UK

> Even in the UK and in Norway police officers are allowed to carry gun's but they rarely do, and rarely have to. Not sure about Norway, but in the case of UK and Ireland most police officers are not allowed anywhere near firearms. If an incident takes place that requires armed officers a senior policeman authorises the use of armed unit. Every force has access to them, and training is as much about de-escalation and negotiation as shooting. They are drawn from regular police and undergo significant extra regular training. Wikipedia tells me roughly 6,000 of something like 140,000 UK police are authorised to carry firearms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorised_Firearms_Officer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorised_Firearms_Officer

Havoc 10y ago
>Wikipedia tells me roughly 6,000 of something like 140,000 UK police are authorised to carry firearms. Interesting - I would have guessed way more. The ones most visible to me (at airports) are always armed to the teeth.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Airport is MOD police, you have to be an Armed Responce officer in the UK to carry guns which is a specific qualification that requires training. That said when armed response is called for they do not show up with handguns but with MP5's and since 2009 or so with full auto M4's.
  - junto 10y ago
    > Airport is MOD police That's wrong. UK airports are protected by whichever constabulary the airport geographically falls under, though the London Greater Metropolitan Area and Belfast are slightly different with dedicated units. The Aviation Security Operational Command Unit (SO18) is a Specialist Operations unit of London's Metropolitan Police Service. The unit is responsible for providing law enforcement and security for both Heathrow and London City airports.[1] London's other airports, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton are policed by Sussex, Essex and the Bedfordshire Police respectively, as they are not located in the Metropolitan Police District. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_Security_Operational_Command_Unit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_Security_Operationa...
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      Thanks for the correction, I was sure that Heathrow went under MOD in the past 10-15 years, especially since most of the AR officer I've seen at Heathrow were wearing the MODP badges (not literally, but cap and shoulder strap :)) but it could've been just localized reinforcement, I think the last time I've noticed a serious number of armed police at heathrow was in the weeks after the xmas day bomber.
rodgerd 10y ago
> Every force has access to them, and training is as much about de-escalation and negotiation as shooting. Or just plain non-shooting solutions to the problem. When a person having some sort of psychotic break started smashing up a local games shop with a weapon, the local police made sure the staff were out, let the offender tire himself out breaking things, and then used pepper spray before arresting him. I would be very surprised if the equivalent scenario in the US didn't involve shots being fired.
- kobeya 10y ago
  Who paid for the property damage incurred while they waited?
  - PaulKeeble 10y ago
    Its definitely not acceptable in the UK to save more of a shops property by murdering someone, that is a sure fire route to jail for life for a police officer and rightly so. The answer is the insurance company. Property isn't worth more than a human life but I know in the USA they do have the premise of defending your property lethally, we don't have that in our culture we don't believe in capital punishment regardless of the crime. Shooting a man for property damage is a conviction and sentence to death by a police officer, that is not OK this isn't Judge Dread.
    - kobeya 10y ago
      What instead of a trinket store it was the National Gallery and the perp was taking a knife to irreplaceable artwork? Point is at some point you MUST assign a dollar value to human life, and to pretend otherwise is to have inconsistent morals.
  - rodgerd 10y ago
    The owner's insurance, I imagine. Killing someone for the value of a few DVDs is the sort of thing we associate with crazy people, not the police.
insin 10y ago
Police Service of Northern Ireland [1] officers routinely carry guns, but I don't understand the culture where a sidearm is drawn and pointed at a driver from the start in a routine broken tail light/uninsured driver type stop. That would probably make the news in NI. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Service_of_Northern_Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Service_of_Northern_Ire...
- kofejnik 10y ago
  it wasn't a broken tail light stop, they were stopped because they matched the description of suspects in an earlier armed robbery
  - yardie 10y ago
    What was the description? From all accounts so far the officer radioed he had a broad nose.
  - diyorgasms 10y ago
    This is simply not true and the only place reporting this is a far-right blog. You are not entitled to your own facts. Edit - Here's a Snopes link describing the particulars of the falsehood: http://www.snopes.com/philando-castile-was-not-wanted-for-armed-robbery/ http://www.snopes.com/philando-castile-was-not-wanted-for-ar...
    - kofejnik 10y ago
      Do you realize your link literally repeats what I said: "Police who pulled over and killed Philando Castile reported they thought he might have resembled a suspect in an armed robbery case." He was not stopped over a broken light, police _thought_ he could be armed and dangerous. (I can not judge the validity of their suspicions)
- tzs 10y ago
  They usually do not draw a weapon on a routine stop. The stops with weapons drawn are usually when they have some reason to suspect that they are dealing with an actual criminal. As for why they might pull their sidearm in such a case, just ponder the following statistics. United States: 112 guns per 100 residents. United Kingdom: 6.6 guns per 100 residents. The United States has around 5% of the world's population, but 30-50% of the world's civilian owned guns. The gun homicide rate in the US is about 60 times that of the UK.

Havoc 10y ago

>Wikipedia tells me roughly 6,000 of something like 140,000 UK police are authorised to carry firearms. Interesting - I would have guessed way more. The ones most visible to me (at airports) are always armed to the teeth.

dogma1138 10y ago
Airport is MOD police, you have to be an Armed Responce officer in the UK to carry guns which is a specific qualification that requires training. That said when armed response is called for they do not show up with handguns but with MP5's and since 2009 or so with full auto M4's.
- junto 10y ago
  > Airport is MOD police That's wrong. UK airports are protected by whichever constabulary the airport geographically falls under, though the London Greater Metropolitan Area and Belfast are slightly different with dedicated units. The Aviation Security Operational Command Unit (SO18) is a Specialist Operations unit of London's Metropolitan Police Service. The unit is responsible for providing law enforcement and security for both Heathrow and London City airports.[1] London's other airports, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton are policed by Sussex, Essex and the Bedfordshire Police respectively, as they are not located in the Metropolitan Police District. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_Security_Operational_Command_Unit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_Security_Operationa...
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Thanks for the correction, I was sure that Heathrow went under MOD in the past 10-15 years, especially since most of the AR officer I've seen at Heathrow were wearing the MODP badges (not literally, but cap and shoulder strap :)) but it could've been just localized reinforcement, I think the last time I've noticed a serious number of armed police at heathrow was in the weeks after the xmas day bomber.

rodgerd 10y ago

> Every force has access to them, and training is as much about de-escalation and negotiation as shooting. Or just plain non-shooting solutions to the problem. When a person having some sort of psychotic break started smashing up a local games shop with a weapon, the local police made sure the staff were out, let the offender tire himself out breaking things, and then used pepper spray before arresting him. I would be very surprised if the equivalent scenario in the US didn't involve shots being fired.

kobeya 10y ago
Who paid for the property damage incurred while they waited?
- PaulKeeble 10y ago
  Its definitely not acceptable in the UK to save more of a shops property by murdering someone, that is a sure fire route to jail for life for a police officer and rightly so. The answer is the insurance company. Property isn't worth more than a human life but I know in the USA they do have the premise of defending your property lethally, we don't have that in our culture we don't believe in capital punishment regardless of the crime. Shooting a man for property damage is a conviction and sentence to death by a police officer, that is not OK this isn't Judge Dread.
  - kobeya 10y ago
    What instead of a trinket store it was the National Gallery and the perp was taking a knife to irreplaceable artwork? Point is at some point you MUST assign a dollar value to human life, and to pretend otherwise is to have inconsistent morals.
- rodgerd 10y ago
  The owner's insurance, I imagine. Killing someone for the value of a few DVDs is the sort of thing we associate with crazy people, not the police.

insin 10y ago

Police Service of Northern Ireland [1] officers routinely carry guns, but I don't understand the culture where a sidearm is drawn and pointed at a driver from the start in a routine broken tail light/uninsured driver type stop. That would probably make the news in NI. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Service_of_Northern_Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Service_of_Northern_Ire...

kofejnik 10y ago
it wasn't a broken tail light stop, they were stopped because they matched the description of suspects in an earlier armed robbery
- yardie 10y ago
  What was the description? From all accounts so far the officer radioed he had a broad nose.
- diyorgasms 10y ago
  This is simply not true and the only place reporting this is a far-right blog. You are not entitled to your own facts. Edit - Here's a Snopes link describing the particulars of the falsehood: http://www.snopes.com/philando-castile-was-not-wanted-for-armed-robbery/ http://www.snopes.com/philando-castile-was-not-wanted-for-ar...
  - kofejnik 10y ago
    Do you realize your link literally repeats what I said: "Police who pulled over and killed Philando Castile reported they thought he might have resembled a suspect in an armed robbery case." He was not stopped over a broken light, police _thought_ he could be armed and dangerous. (I can not judge the validity of their suspicions)
tzs 10y ago
They usually do not draw a weapon on a routine stop. The stops with weapons drawn are usually when they have some reason to suspect that they are dealing with an actual criminal. As for why they might pull their sidearm in such a case, just ponder the following statistics. United States: 112 guns per 100 residents. United Kingdom: 6.6 guns per 100 residents. The United States has around 5% of the world's population, but 30-50% of the world's civilian owned guns. The gun homicide rate in the US is about 60 times that of the UK.