4 ms·

The Police Federation, the association for low and medium rank police, regularly sounds out officers' view of their being armed. The public is keener on armed p

The Police Federation, the association for low and medium rank police, regularly sounds out officers' view of their being armed. The public is keener on armed police than the police are - thanks to idiot perspectives from the likes of the Daily Mail. Police themselves are always overwhelmingly against - like usually 80 or 90% against when polled. They get tasers - though even those don't seem universal - even that was considered a step too far by many. Firearms officers will remain - thankfully - volunteers subject to significant extra training, psychological screening and oversight. When mistakes or negligence happen they make front page news. There are more firearms units and more in visible positions like airports and other protection than there used to be, but they remain a small minority of the overall.

solidsnack9000 7y ago
When mistakes or negligence happen, they make front page news in the United States, too.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  OK, then I should have expressed it better - it's vanishingly rare. Even armed officers are expected to de-escalate when possible, rather than shoot. There's been some questionable sounding incidents amongst the very low numbers of actual shootings, and of course there are sometimes major cock-ups - a couple of which that sounded seriously negligent. Wikipedia says in the year 2011–12, conventional firearms were used FIVE times. At the time there were 6,756 Authorised Firearms Officers and 12,550 police operations in which firearms were authorised throughout England and Wales. Which doesn't sound like UK:US convergence to me. :)
  - solidsnack9000 7y ago
    I agree with your point to the effect that US and UK are not converging in this area. What are differences in UK training? I imagine the training is very good because the confidence not to over-react in self-defense comes from knowing (a) that you can handle many situations and (b) how to assess the situation you when are in it.

solidsnack9000 7y ago

When mistakes or negligence happen, they make front page news in the United States, too.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
OK, then I should have expressed it better - it's vanishingly rare. Even armed officers are expected to de-escalate when possible, rather than shoot. There's been some questionable sounding incidents amongst the very low numbers of actual shootings, and of course there are sometimes major cock-ups - a couple of which that sounded seriously negligent. Wikipedia says in the year 2011–12, conventional firearms were used FIVE times. At the time there were 6,756 Authorised Firearms Officers and 12,550 police operations in which firearms were authorised throughout England and Wales. Which doesn't sound like UK:US convergence to me. :)
- solidsnack9000 7y ago
  I agree with your point to the effect that US and UK are not converging in this area. What are differences in UK training? I imagine the training is very good because the confidence not to over-react in self-defense comes from knowing (a) that you can handle many situations and (b) how to assess the situation you when are in it.