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Arm the Gardai?

  • 28-02-2006 3:40pm
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,190 ✭✭✭


    Still hearing about the riots in Dublin City Center on Saturday and to be honest i think it was an outrage and shouldn't have been tolerated.Every scumbag there for nothing but the riots should have been beaten onto garda vans and then again in the garda station for doing what they did. Gardai took physical punishment for 20 Min's before actually being able to batton charge the crowd and are now being criticized for this on the radio this morning. What else could they have done? They had to control shop looting, scumbags attacking them and trying to keep the general public safe all at the same time and were not prepared as well as trying to control the marchers.

    Just think that the situation would have been under control a lot sooner if the 50 or so riot police had shotguns and 250 other gards had handguns instead of battons and riot shields (this of course is only if they are all trained to use them properly).A few shots up into the air would have scared the lot of them and sent them running giving the gards the upper hand on making arrests. Just think the poor gards get a really hard time and no matter what they do are criticized for being wrong.

    God knows if there was a gard pointing a gun at me id be on the ground (under control) in a min.

    On the other hand there probably would have been more casualties.

    Just wanna ask ya this
    Do ya think the gardai should be armed?
    If not what can be done to stop this kind of mayhem again?
    What can be done to stop images like these happening again:

    http://images.google.ie/imgres?imgurl=http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/mar2004/garda_riot_training.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php%3Fstory_id%3D64150&h=345&w=432&sz=26&tbnid=bv_vV3WMG-LsxM:&tbnh=98&tbnw=123&hl=en&start=2&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddublin%2Briots%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D

    Click on Picture top right hand corner of this page


Comments

  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 3,935 Mod ✭✭✭✭Turner


    Firing shots into the air is a bad idea, they have to land somewhere and can potentially kill.


    You will find that alot of the gardai do carry arms.
    my.php?image=suntrib200602128zh.jpg


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,810 ✭✭✭lodgepole


    Do ya think the gardai should be armed?
    No I don't. I believe that as soon as our police are armed you'll see the criminal element more frequently armed. There were armed police in the city on Saturday who would have made themselves known had they been required. Arming the police may seem like a good idea when you apply it to a specific situation such as last Saturdays riots or the Mayday protests from a few years ago but they would be damaging to Irish society as a whole. IMO.
    If not what can be done to stop this kind of mayhem again?
    I think that the budgeting of the Gardai has to be looked at and that something should be done to increase the number of riot police available in any given circumstance. Water canons and other devices should be purchased and mobile. But most importantly Dublin, and indeed the rest of Ireland, has to look at our youth and wonder what drives a person to wantonly abuse the police and destroy property.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,558 ✭✭✭netwhizkid


    Yes what a good idea lets give guns to those who like murdering Innocent people like John Carty in longford. The day the guards carry guns is a bad reflection on society.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,190 ✭✭✭Dublinstiofán


    Chief--- wrote:
    Firing shots into the air is a bad idea, they have to land somewhere and can potentially kill.


    You will find that alot of the gardai do carry arms.
    my.php?image=suntrib200602128zh.jpg

    Dont think it would have been the end of the world firing a few shots in the air there on saturday god knows they wouldnt have been the only thing in the air.
    Im only looking for opionons on this not lookin to be fired on myself by the way. Personally i dont think they should be armed but think every gard that was out there on saturday should have had more than a batton to face the situation they did.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,991 ✭✭✭el tel


    I'm sure that the Gardai presence on O'Connell Street included armed officers as well as those carying sheilds and batons. This would be normal practice in any crowd control situation. To consider that discharging a few shots in the air would have "scared the lot of them and sent them running" borders on the imbecilic. Doing so would have resulted in mass panic among the anyone in the vacinity and would only have escalated the situtaion. Having grown up in and done some freelance photography in Belfast during the 80s and 90s I've been in the thick of many riots and have seen what firing shots causes. What happened in Dublin is a piece of pi$$ in comparison and no way warranted a response any greater than what was given. To even consider having 250 police carrying handguns instead of batons and with a further 50 carrying shotguns is ridiculous.

    As regards having the rank-and-file Gardai armed - they simply aren't that kind of police force (i.e. they are retards) and this isn't really the kind of society for that yet.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 285 ✭✭shuushh


    guaranteed someone would have been shot and possibly killed on Saturday if gardai had firearms, what usually happens in societies where police have guns is more criminals start carrying them around

    a big ass water cannon is what was needed at the beginning of the trouble on Saturday that would have quickly killed off alot of trouble


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,287 ✭✭✭100gSoma


    No offence, but what a stupid post. Arm the gardai? They should not be allowed to carry truncheons. Ever since I saw that lanky cop (you know him) jump up and RAIN down repeated FULL FORCE baton whacks to the top of an unarmed young mans head, I think they do not have the sense to carry any form of weapon.
    Did you all see the video? The love parade in dame street last year was it or 04. One gardai when told by a member of the public "you cannot just assualt people?" shouted "I'll assualt who I like!!!" and whacked someone with his batton while shouting "get off the road"... animals. Imagine he had a gun? "I'll shoot who I like". morons.
    you can kill someone by hitting them to the head with a blunt object! you would think they would learn the correct strike zones to hit someone when threathened. Anyone been to templemore? care to comment? weren't you told never the head. and not random indescriminate batons to the heads of fleeing unarmed peaceful persons, only when your safety or that of your colleagues is directly threathened. ar*eholes. I wouldn't arm them with .... eh... arms quite frankly. :mad: If I was a member of the force, I would be ashamed. :(


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,810 ✭✭✭lodgepole


    100gSoma wrote:
    No offence, but what a stupid post. Arm the gardai? They should not be allowed to carry truncheons.
    The answer to what you're saying isn't to remove the truncheons from the Gardai, it's to ensure that the ones out using them have proper training in their use and the ability to excercise restraint. Most of the Gardai do have that training and that ability. If you're looking for good examples of police brutality, Ireland is a poor place to look. Take a look south the French police if you want to see a force not afraid to reign down on any public offenders.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27,857 ✭✭✭✭Dave!


    I don't think that having guns to control this kind of stuff would do any good. The criminals would just arm themselves as well.

    I'll post more generally later, goin to work soon... bleh...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,941 ✭✭✭pclancy


    Arm the Guards? I dunno if that would be a good day for Ireland. As it stands detectives can carry weapons and they have the Emergency Response Unit (paddyswat as they're called abroad) on very quick alert along with the army for backup. Those three groups of people are the only ones trained enough to carry anything at this stage and I dont think the rest of the force has reason to carry any. Theres just not enough gun crime here to warrant ordinary cops getting armed and i dont think it would reduce gun crime at all.

    The riot was a mess of scumbags taking advantage of the situation and egged on by idiots from RSF. Those knackers didnt stand for decent irish people nor did they know what they were talking about. Im a strong republican but I was disgusted and outraged at saturday's events. The cops got a raw deal as there was little or no backup and obviously very bad planning. I thought they handled it as well as they could considering the little resources they had.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,064 ✭✭✭Gurgle


    Lodgepole wrote:
    Arming the police may seem like a good idea when you apply it to a specific situation such as last Saturdays riots or the Mayday protests from a few years ago but they would be damaging to Irish society as a whole.
    Guns are no good for riots.

    Try explaining that to the papers: "He threw a brick, we blew his head off". Does 'Bloody Sunday' ring any bells?

    Tear gas, tear gas, tear gas all the way!


  • Users Awaiting Email Confirmation Posts: 729 ✭✭✭popinfresh


    Give them like Tazers and rubber bulets, but not guns. That'd just turn nasty.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,564 ✭✭✭✭whiskeyman


    Arming the gardaí in relation to riots makes no difference.
    Remember the "battle in Seattle" at the WTO protests (and many others) where Police were armed?
    Same scenario.

    The key is reasonable force to counter the problem.

    Sure, if the rioters / looters are armed, you'll probably need firepower to gain an equal balance.
    However, for unarmed thugs, they needed simply more numbers and tactical riot counter weapons - tear gas / non leathal bullets / water cannons etc..
    All these will help defuse the scenario (faster, hopefully), but would not prevent the riot in the first place.

    Arming the Gardaí in general is a whole different debate.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 16,644 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manic Moran


    Dont think it would have been the end of the world firing a few shots in the air there on saturday god knows they wouldnt have been the only thing in the air.


    Standard policy over here is no warning shots shall be fired. I presume it's out of concern for the unknown location where they would land. Would kindof suck to be a chap lying down in a park two miles away to have a bullet land on him out of the blue. Basically, if the trigger is pulled, it had better be aimed at someone.

    I've no issues with arming the Gardai in general, but for the purposes of this post, it's a daft idea. Indeed, I believe most riot cops remove their firearms so that nobody can nick them in the melée. Before opening up on people, you want to give less fatal methods a chance first, and the general clubbing with a truncheon appears to have done the job in Dublin. It certainly never got to the point where a firearm would be required.

    NTM


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 16,793 ✭✭✭✭Hagar




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