Unarmed Policing

[Sukerkin]

Here is a most interesting article on the BBC about both how it is that British police are generally not armed and why it is likely to remain so:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19641398

It could do with being a little more detailed I think but it gives a flavour of the issue (and an odd difference of view between the Police and the public).

 

[elder999]

Intersting article, here:

Grey was seated across a table from me at a small dinner party some months ago in Washington, D.C., saying things like, “Americans need to give up their guns. They must become responsible citizens of the world.” Meanwhile, the other writers around the table—people who know my background—were glancing at me, bracing for the counterattack.
I stayed quiet as he described his utopian vision of a disarmed world like John Lennon singing “Imagine no possessions … I wonder if you can … . ” I wanted him to be fully committed before I engaged.
Minutes later, as he paused to view the effect of his anti-gun offensive on a table full of Americans, I opted for an attack he likely hadn’t encountered before. I didn’t think he’d be swayed by crime statistics. And if I cited the dramatic English history of individual rights—and the loss thereof—he’d probably quote Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil to contend there is no absolute right and wrong and therefore no real individual rights. That philosophical discussion, as interesting as it might be, would be a smokescreen for his retreat. What I needed was a way at the truth he hadn’t encountered before, so I drew him in with the true story of a particular Springfield Model 1903.

I read my copy last night, and was going to make this a separate thread, but it seemed appropriate here.....

 

[Sukerkin]

Tarn it - the link leads us to Page Not Found, Elder .

 

[elder999]

Yall have even banned American Rifleman Magazine, not just guns, huh? :lfao:

www.[B]americanrifleman.org[/B]/articles/the-​hession-rifles-story

Tarn it - the link leads us to Page Not Found, Elder .

 

[Sukerkin]

:chuckles: I dug out the link text but cannot find it on the site . So, nearly clever but not quite there for me :blush:

Even trying just to get in to the Articles directory by adding it to the URL still comes up with Page Not Found .

 

[elder999]

http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/the-hession-rifles-story/

 

[Tez3]

One police force outside N Ireland is routinely armed. There are armed police on our streets it's just that if things go well you will never know...as it should be.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Wait :xtrmshock

I’m confused

You have armless Policemen in England :uhyeah:

 

[Sukerkin]

Aye they lie in the road and have a sleep ...

... sorry that might be a bit obscure for our American readers .

Ah, I see that the site takes security very seriously, Elder, by having a directory called Articles in the URL but History on the page . That one works my friend, thank you.

 

[elder999]

Aye they lie in the road and have a sleep ...

... sorry that might be a bit obscure for our American readers .

.

Yeah, one of my favorite signs from the Carribean: Sleeping Policeman Ahead :lfao:


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Around here, I call 'em Jimmy Hoffas....:lfao:

 

[jks9199]

Going down the gun rights road is a red herring. I'm acquainted with several British active and retired cops. There are a lot of commonalities in policing on either side of the Atlantic... but some key differences. Guns are actually only one indication of that difference. The difference is cultural, and legal, especially in the US. I'm going to use bobbies to describe British cops and cops for US cops for convenience.

Culturally, as discussed in Suk's article, the mindset of policing has a different emphasis, I guess is how I'll say it. Bluntly, folks here in the US tolerate the police, and we enforce the law. It's not policing by consent, as the bobbies describe; it's policing in spite of dissent, you might say. It's a cultural thing. The US culture doesn't like to be told what to do. We don't like someone in authority, and we distrust authority -- especially with power. We're a culture of troublemakers, of people who demand to know why they should comply. I can't speak for the British culture in the same way -- but I note that many different accounts of behaviors (queuing up at a bus stop, for one example) support a different perspective on social order. (That's obviously not to say that there are no dissenters, and please don't make more of this very broad brush than it is.) That deeply seated perspective ends up influence policing. Most people in the US will comply, voluntarily, because it's what they "should do" -- but a lot will still demand a reason or justification for why they should do it or why the laws are there.

I also suspect that a more historically homogenous culture influenced the way that policing developed. I can't help but wonder if part of why police here have become much more isolated from the populace they serve is because that populace has increasingly become isolated from itself, as more and more different cultures come here and only slowly and partially assimilate. (I still come across people in the US for decades who can't function without a translator...)

There's also an important legal concern. One reason that the bobbies get away with less firepower is that we have the posse comitatus act. This federal law greatly restricts the use of the military forces at home. Where some roles are handled by military units in Britain -- we can't do that.

And then there's the simple thing that we have a lot more guns around here than y'all do... in a lot more hands. Good and bad...

 

[granfire]

and strangely enough, a nation with the highest precedence of accepting authority, the police carries sub machine guns in Germany....

 

[Xue Sheng]

and strangely enough, a nation with the highest precedence of accepting authority, the police carries sub machine guns in Germany....

and yet they are unarmed in China

 

[Tez3]

Arming the police routinely here wouldn't have saved any police officer that has been killed here.
The situation in Manchester is a bit different from the rest of the UK. http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereve...-manchester-victims-of-a-sad-cycle-of-revenge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Noonan
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...orture-man-conspiracy-supply-dance-drugs.html


However the police and the community have been fighting back. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/03/gun-crime-manchester-communities-police

 

[arnisador]

Love this: "Arming the force would, say opponents, undermine the principle of policing by consent - the notion that the force owes its primary duty to the public, rather than to the state, as in other countries."

 

[Tez3]

The oath police officers take is, like tha armed forces, to the Queen, the state doesn't come into it. The police serve the people not the state. the Office of Constable is a very important one often not understood.
http://www.polfed.org/OC_Final.pdf

 

[jks9199]

Love this: "Arming the force would, say opponents, undermine the principle of policing by consent - the notion that the force owes its primary duty to the public, rather than to the state, as in other countries."

I don't completely agree with the phrasing, as it describes policing in other countries. In some countries -- absolutely; the police are an oppressive arm of government force. Here in the US, it's a lot more complicated because our policing forces are spread across so many levels. (There's even a police department that is under the federal legislative branch: The US Capitol Police. I believe they're the only PD directly under the legislative branch at all in the US.) As a municipal police officer, I answer (through my chain of command) to the Town as represented by the Town Council and mayor. We serve the people, but we don't answer to them directly. As I said above, there's a subtle distinction between "serve the public" here and "policing by consent" in Britain, and I think it goes down to the cultural roots in each nation.

 

[arnisador]

It's a great philosophy if it works--but there are places in NYC that'd be hard to police 'by consent'.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I don't completely agree with the phrasing, as it describes policing in other countries. In some countries -- absolutely; the police are an oppressive arm of government force. Here in the US, it's a lot more complicated because our policing forces are spread across so many levels. (There's even a police department that is under the federal legislative branch: The US Capitol Police. I believe they're the only PD directly under the legislative branch at all in the US.) As a municipal police officer, I answer (through my chain of command) to the Town as represented by the Town Council and mayor. We serve the people, but we don't answer to them directly. As I said above, there's a subtle distinction between "serve the public" here and "policing by consent" in Britain, and I think it goes down to the cultural roots in each nation.

There is the United States Government Printing Office Police who also fall under the legislative branch. However the majority of Federal police fall under the executive branch.

And then you get into State Police, County Police, City Police, College Police, etc., but you already know that

 

[elder999]

Going down the gun rights road is a red herring..

Yes, but not a complete one.

From the article I posted:

So disarmed, I pointed out, that law-abiding residents were helpless when Tottenham’s gangster youth decided to loot stores, mug residents and vandalize automobiles in August 2011 after police had shot and killed a person following a car chase.

Tottenham’s High Road was ground zero for the riots, which have an interesting tie-in to the history outlined here. The “Tottenham Outrage” of 1909—yes, the same “Tottenham” where the 2011 riots took place—was a famous gunfight that exhibited a very different English character.

Two men in Tottenham, armed with semi-automatic handguns, attempted to rob a payroll truck, but when the guards fought back the robbers fled on foot. The chase lasted two hours and covered about six miles as officers and armed civilians pursued the robbers. In the end one of the thieves committed suicide and the other later died in surgery. One officer and one civilian were also killed. The bravery of the officers and civilians prompted the creation of the Kings Police Medal and the funeral processions for the slain officer and the civilian passed through streets lined with mournful Londoners.

Yes, a lot has changed since the English people gave up their right to bear arms.

I completely agree wit the rest of your post, though, in re: cultural differences. Frankly, I think it will be a sad day when all the police there go about armed, routinely-as ours do.

A sad day, but one that is probably inevitable.