quote:

ORIGINAL: BamaD

quote:

ORIGINAL: bondageerone

just for a change I agree, as I joined the Police at 18, and still there, do actually carry a gun now, the last thing I hope, is I do not have to use it, and we do not aim to kill , just bring the criminal down. xx

I have spent most of my life around U S cops, and I can assure you they don't want to ever have to pull their weapons.

quote:

You claim if you still had it you would post it, I dont see anyone stopping you from finding it. Not only are people in the UK afraid to walk down the street, we dont even desire to carry arms to feel safe at night.

quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

quote:

You claim if you still had it you would post it, I dont see anyone stopping you from finding it. Not only are people in the UK afraid to walk down the street, we dont even desire to carry arms to feel safe at night.

I could find it just about plausible. Pick a time when there have been lots of celebrated cases of crime in the papers; a time in the run-up to a general election when the Tories especially are pushing the law and order line and how fearful we all are on the streets .... Also those 'fearfulness' figures go up and down a lot, from what I vaguely remember reading, given whatever is the 'devil of the day'. For instance the chances of your child being whisked off by a paedo remain vanishingly slim - but the fear of that happening has risen astronomically over the past few decades along with a growing obsession with that particular kind of crime in the media over the same time frame.

And there's also the point that people might well be fearful here - but of, say, getting robbed, not of getting killed.

quote:

ORIGINAL: WickedsDesire

Fatal shootings by police officers have been a major political issue in the United States in recent years. From Michael Brown in Ferguson to Freddie Gray in Baltimore, such killings, often of young African Americans, regularly lead international news headlines.
One counting project found 613 people had been killed by US police so far in 2016, as of 28 July. American police routinely carry guns, and most high profile incidents are shootings.

Official figures in the United Kingdom could not paint a more different picture. Statistics released by the Home Office – Britain’s interior ministry – show how rare it is for the UK’s police to use guns.
In England and Wales in the 12 months to March 2016, British police discharged their firearms on just seven occasions, the statistics, released on Thursday show.

This figure is actually a record, of sorts. In the same period ending in March 2013, firearms were used only three times. In the 2015 period they were used six times. Seven uses of weapons is the highest since at least 2009.
Britain’s police do not routinely carry firearms; instead, specially trained firearms officers are rapidly dispatched to incidents where a threat is reported.

Heavily armed police can also be found guarding places perceived to be likely terror targets, such as airports, government buildings, and major railway stations.

There is no equivalent overall count for the number of times police used firearms in the United States; their use is considered routine.
Protests against police killings have been common in the US in recent years (REUTERS)

The Home Office notes that the statistics do not include so-called “animal destruction”, accidental discharge of guns, and – intriguingly – the shooting out of car tyres in police chases.

The number of police officers authorised to use firearms has also been falling in a long-term trend. In 2009 there were 6,906 such special officers in England and Wales; in March 2016 there were just 5,639, with a decline recorded in almost all intervening years.
The number of times armed police were actually deployed in England and Wales in the 12 month period was 12,471 – broadly flat on last year in the context of a long-term decline. But decisions on whether to open fire tend to be made through the chain of command, meaning even when police with guns arrive, a shoot-out is rare.

The United States of course has a bigger population than the UK – Britain has 64.1 million residents, the US 319 million. But on a per-capita basis, Britain’s rate of police gun use would translate into US police using their guns on 35 occasions in an entire year. This would be an unthinkably low number.

The overall picture in Britain doesn’t mean police shooting incidents do not happen. The fatal shooting by police of 29-year-old Mark Duggan in 2011 prompted an inquiry and criticisms of misconduct. The shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes also provoked controversy. Campaigners have also long highlighted statistics showing a pattern of deaths in police custody.

But the scale of such killings is undoubtedly of a different order to that in the United States

I read that today and thought I would share as the actual figures are almost impossible to come by

Obviously, and my thoughts are well known, I see the availability/atttude of guns as the root cause of the disparity

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata

quote:

ORIGINAL: Politesub53

Not only are people in the UK afraid to walk down the street, we dont even desire to carry arms to feel safe at night.

Telling it like it is?

K.