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Do the British police need guns?
(original opinion)It is ironic that not giving the police in Britain guns has probably saved many of their lives. A little-known stat in the US is that over 90% of policemen who are shot, are shot with their own weapon. (To include self-inflicted gunshots.) This statistic jumped in the 1960s, when police switched from "old-West" rules for guns to "SWAT" rules. That is, unless gunplay was imminent, the police used to leave their gun in its holster; instead of brandishing their weapon frequently and with little provocation, like they do today. As the expression goes: "Drawing a gun will not make a bad situation better, but it will make an good situation bad." The US irony is, that this statistical jump in the US was used to *justify* that police should use SWAT tactics. Advocates just showed how more and more police were being shot, and so needed to be more aggressive in defending themselves, without mentioning, or even knowing, that they were being shot with their own guns. Handgun masters are always very cautious about letting their gun get the better of them. It does not make you omnipotent, or render your opponent defenseless. It is common that you will miss your target. And it is very likely that even if you hit who you are aiming at, that they will not drop immediately, or die immediately, and may act with sufficient violence to kill you back first. Single knife and other bladed weapon wounds are four times more likely to kill as are single bullet wounds, for example. Many confrontations are with individuals under the influence of alcohol and drugs. They are often oblivious to a gun--they want to box and wrestle. They will charge an officer, who if his gun is out, stands a good chance to lose it. If a bad guy gets your gun, there is a high probability that he will turn it on you, without thought. Had it been in his holster, he might have been able to use a more effective tool such as pepper spray, taser, a nightstick or ton-fa. Even his fists and feet might have been more effective. So, do the police in Britain need guns? Well, yes, but only under certain circumstances. They lost a great deterrent to police killings when they abolished the death penalty for that crime. So the British police do need some weapon to match what the all-too-common gun-carrying criminal has in that harshly gun-control country. They would gain a lot if their officers were required to conceal their weapon. As has been shown in concealed-carry States in the US, the psychology of concealed carry is a great deterrent to crime. First of all, the criminal does not know who, in general, is armed. This makes what they are doing much harder. Second, a person who has a concealed weapon is psychologically much stronger, and projects that strength. Third, a lot of this advantage is *lost* when they brandish their weapon, so it is to their advantage to keep it hidden and try to use other means of persuasion. And fourth, if the criminal is armed with a gun, it does him little good if faced with more than one policeman who *may* be armed--he doesn't know who to aim at. Finally, as an epilogue to the story of a tool best left unused, there is the story of a rural Arizona sheriff who was the law in that county from the 1920s through the 1950s. He was known for having solved 70 or so homicides in his time, with no unsolved murders. Most of what he did was on horseback, and in his entire career he never drew his gun, working entirely with persuasion. On his retirement, a trophy cabinet was made to display highlights from his career in the Sheriff's office. Included was his gun and holster. It was decided to give it a good cleaning first, until it was discovered that it could not be removed from the holster. The gun was just an unusable hunk of rust that had long since fused with the leather. Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-11-20 |
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