Armed gardaí to police streets over December

markk06 wrote:

Its quite easy for you to say, whilst sitting reading your Sunday World or posts on Boards about the situation, that the Rank and File Gardai should not be armed.

God it's like you've known me all my life...!!! :eek: Maybe you're mistaking me with a member of your own family or something, but I don't read the Sunday World.

And you seem to be implying that because I'm not engaged in gun-fights when I come home from work that I'm not qualified to give my opinion on this matter (another cheap shot, clearly I didn't anticipate having to come up against this rapier wit). Are you out on the front-line or something? Something tells me you're not.

Not that it makes a difference, but there was recently a bloke shot a mere stone-throw from my house, so this affects me as much as yourself. I know you like to pretend you're some sort of veteran, but your opinion is as important as my own, so get over yourself buddy.

markk06 wrote:

Its also possible that this may be true, however when you refer back to the subject of the discussion you will see that it is not on whether all Gardai should be armed but is regarding the fact that there will be Armed Patrols on the street in order to deal with the rise in organised crime. The stance i am coming from is that we need more of these patrols and units set up to quash the serious rise in violent criminal activity in our capital.

Well some people ARE arguing that the rank-and-file should be armed, so it's quite relevent. And it's a slippery slope from having just a 'handful' of Gardai on the street carrying guns, to having the whole lot of them. The Gardai were established as an unarmed police force; once you do away with that as a principle, then you might as well just give them all guns.

Now I don't have my head in the sand, so I don't expect the Gardai to take on the criminal underworld using their Maglites. Armed units are a good idea to use against specific targets and to concentrate on known gangland areas. But having 1 or 2 Gardai with SMGs walking down O Connell Street to act as a deterrent is not a good thing for Irish society.

Better intelligence, tougher sentencing, zero-tolerance... More Garda presence on the streets... These might be exhausted first before we start dishing out m16s with every set of handcuffs.

markk06 wrote:

The people dealing with this are in organised crime units and in some cases members of the ERU. If you look back to my previous posts you will see that i pointed this out. Unfortunately the war on crime cannot be won unless the Gardai with the help of government and the judiciary come down hard on these career criminals and guns for hire and to do this it is necessary to give them the firepower they need.

It's not the responsibility of the Gardai to "come down hard" on the criminals. It's their job to apprehend them and then put them in the hands of the justice system.

The Gardai are arresting them, and they're walking the streets with criminal records as long as my arm because the justice system isn't giving them tough enough sentences. The Minister for Justice was only saying this the other day!

It's not first-time offenders who are out shooting each other. It's drug dealers who have been commiting crimes their whole lives.

I don't see how giving guns to the Gardai is going to do anything to improve this. It will just mean that we'll see shoot-outs between criminals and Gardai in the middle of the street, meaning more dead by-standers, and dead Gardai.

markk06 wrote:

Try imagine you are a detective, would you not rather have a gun at your side to protect you if people similar to "Marlo" Hyland come driving by rather than face the prospect of being gunned down
, defenceless in cold blood...

How many Gardai are being shot down daily again? The Gardai aren't there when the people are being shot! So it won't make a difference if they're carrying guns, cos it's a rare event that someone would gun down another person if there's a Garda around -- armed or unarmed.

I would rather if I were a Garda to have alternative options. You say it's a bad thing sending the Gardai to stop gangs unarmed, but you think it's good to send them in with guns? Why not just have them take part in a duel? If the Gardai are fighting in gun-fights with criminals, then you'll soon see alot of dead Gardai.

You apparantly think that fighting fire with fire is the best approach here. If you do that, then you'll find that an awful lot of people are going to get burned. And yet the flames still won't go out (to continue the fire analogy).

markk06 wrote:

Dave MCG i still odnt understand why you are quoting every line i say... Clearly you are very quick today... you do realise you are quoting my points, disagreeing wit them and then voicing your own opinion which is pretty much the exact same as what i have said.

I'm quoting every point you make so that I can address it seperately, rather than post one big chunk of a reply and you not knowing what I'm referring to.

markk06 wrote:

I do not profess to be an expert but would consider myself quite well up on the situation, however someone being shot outside whatever ****hole it is that you crawl out of every morning does not make you an expert either.

Ahh it seems I have underestimated your intelligence! My apologies!

markk06 wrote:

You will find when i said the Gardai will come down hard i included the Government and the Judiciary...

Indeed, and they are all seperate entities.

markk06 wrote:

Unfortunately sending in Armed Units is not the optimum solution, but when dealing with these thugs they wont think twice about shooting you... so the simple fact of the matter is that fire with fire is the only way..

It's the common way, that's for sure. That doesn't mean it works. It will just mean more dead people.

markk06 wrote:

And as for Gardais getting shot... no it isnt happening every day but it happens and has happened... andwill happen unless action is taken immediately...

Yeah and that action should be closer to taking the Gardai out of the way of the bullets and using a different approach, rather than giving them a gun and a pat on the back, and wishing them luck.

It's easy for YOU to say "give them guns and send them in" because YOU'RE not a Garda, are you? Do you even know any Gardaí?

julep wrote:

those targetted in the drive by shootings are people involved in drug dealing. f*ck them. they're the scum of the earth anyway.
you have more chance of being hit by a bus going 200 mph than you have of being shot.

Ever hear of a young plumber named Anthony Campbell?? I'm pretty sure that he didnt think he was gonna be shot that day...

Blue_Lagoon wrote:

Submachine guns are for war and killing people in numbers by spraying an area with lead. Since when has Dub turned into a war zone? Guns are wrong. They create a culture of violence. Gardai should set an example for the citizenry and remain unarmed (except for extremely rare, extraordinary cases where a special, highly trained team could be called in). It's called community policing, where the Gardai are a part of the community, and the community works with them to keep the streets safe. What needs to be done is to provide the Gardai with better training, pay and benefits, not guns!

i'm afraid community policing is lost on people who sell heroine to kids and shoot people

god knows why???:rolleyes:

Gun deaths in Ireland this year: 23
Road traffic deaths in Ireland this year: 352

Please maintain a rational perspective here folks. :rolleyes:

Manic Moran wrote:

Still, it would be amusing to see someone try to rob a post office, just to happen to accidently run into a section of troops.

NTM

Evidently you arent familiar with the fact that the army regularily escort cash in transit vans

Kaiser2000 wrote:

Funnily enough (actually, not really!) I was having this debate with someone yesterday who was also in favor of this idea.

The Army are not outfitted/designed for use in a police role (look how well it's worked in Iraq, or even closer to home in NI - I'm talking moreso about public reaction as well as escations in violence) and I've been told there's advocates of this step being implemented in Bertie's offices - now that's scary!

..

The Irish army are very well trained and equipt to work in aid to the civil power actually.

Mairt wrote:

This isn't a subject which should be discussed.

Why is that? am i missing something? the army arent exactly inconspicuous