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Time to arm the guards with guns?

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Comments

  • #92
    peasant
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,789 ✭✭✭✭peasant


    donvito99 wrote: »
    With regards to the approachability of an officer with a firearm, IMO, it is damaged. To the ordinary Joe Soap like me, who has never handled a firearm and has no idea what implications they have, a gun = whoa! Is he Guarding something? Is he on the lookout for someone? I better not bother him.

    As an ordinary Joe Soap who grew up in a country where no police officer goes out without his friend Walther (P5), I think that fear is irrational.

    I've had nothing but good experiences with the police, they were always friendly, approachable and professional. Because that's a matter of training and not whether or not they carry a pistol somewhere on their belt.

    I would however think that carrying a sidearm actually makes it easier for a police officer to be approachable and professional. Because knowing that it's there (and the other party knowing that it's there) removes the need to be a bully in order to get heard and listened to.

    Stepping up to a group of drunken youths that is creating mayhem/threatening to beat someone up ? ... an armed policeman can carry it off in a far more relaxed yet affirmative manner than someone who has nothing but a nice uniform and a baton to fall back on if things go wrong.

    In a society that is getting more violent it's easier to be peaceful knowing that you could defend yourself if you had to.
    If all you've got to show is a uniform, sometimes the only avenue open for you to assert yourself is to be the more aggressive of the two parties. But that way ...being loud and bullying... you don't actually earn (or command) any respect ...you become part of the downward spiral.


  • #93
    lcrcboy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 562 ✭✭✭lcrcboy


    put a poll up


  • #94
    LD 50
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,557 ✭✭✭LD 50


    NTMK wrote: »
    No there is no reason the standard gardai force needs to be armed. In Limerick City i don't go a day without seeing the ERU, ARU or Detectives around

    I wouldn't trust the cops with guns as a lot of them on a big enough power trip as it is
    Really? Shiite, coz I lived there 3 years and never saw them. Certainly not ERU or ARU. They'd be in fairly obvious vans wouldn't they?
    Manic Moran wrote: »
    9th August 2009 is possibly that date.

    Failing that, the next date that comes to mind is 25th Sept 2007.
    I don't seem to recall they ever found the shooter in that incident, did they?

    NTM
    Would you mind providing links, or further info about the incidents. I'm curious about them now.
    major bill wrote: »
    english police dont carry guns and they have a much bigger and violent population.
    personally knowing some gards i wouldnt give them a toy gun let alone a real one:)
    The Metropolitian Police, among other Territorial Forces, carry firearms, and not just pistols. MP5's and G36c's.
    It works over there, I don't see why it wouldnt over here. And their police force started out without firearms either, but evolved into integrating them. Once the correct training and selection procedures are put down, there won't be any issue of guards on power trips acting out.


  • #95
    slipss
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,025 ✭✭✭slipss


    Smart Bug wrote: »
    There are estates in some of our major cities the Gardai can't enter because they'll be shot at.

    And which fabled areas are these? Bullsh1tville, Exaggerationtown?

    When the average Garda on the street starts coming under gunfire I say arm them to the fukking teeth, give them M4's and APC's if that's what they want. Untill then there is absolutely no need for it.


  • #96
    Pdfile
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,114 ✭✭✭Pdfile


    drdeadlift wrote: »
    What is peoples take on this?
    I believe its long overdue,as each week comes and goes there are just more and more gun&gang related crimes.The crime level here in Ireland is easily on a par with the rest of the eu where police are trusted to hold guns.
    I think they may gain some respect


    they already have them...


    2 over 3 months they where doin armed stops of cars ( 4 un-marked with 2 patrol jeeps, pistols clearly visable )


    besides, they have the PDF if they ever get a lick of trouble.


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  • #97
    Manic Moran
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 17,908 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manic Moran


    donvito99 wrote: »
    I understand where you're coming from, but what I was responding to was that arming beat Gardaí would not effect gangland murders and/or stabbings etc, which some posters have vouched to arm the Gardaí for.

    Oh, I'll agree with this. I'm just thinking purely from the officer safety standpoint.
    With regards to the approachability of an officer with a firearm, IMO, it is damaged. To the ordinary Joe Soap like me, who has never handled a firearm and has no idea what implications they have, a gun = whoa! Is he Guarding something? Is he on the lookout for someone? I better not bother him.

    Yes, because it's unusual. When it's routine, there's no "Is he looking for someone?" question about it because you know it's just part of the uniform. Just like the baton and handcuffs already on his/her belt. It's not as if people think that the Garda is just looking for an excuse to beat the bejasus out of someone, handcuff them, and then cart them off to jail for the overnight simply because he's got the tools to do the job, is it?
    They have an entire Bat Belt full of gadgets, and a black belt of black gadgets against a black uniform, its very easy for the public to forget one of those pieces is a gun at all. It just becomes another piece of equipment, like the radio, or Cuff-pouch

    An interesting phenomenon noted in the US is that a lot of times, people just don't notice people wearing sidearms, unless it's bright silver or a hog like a .44 magnum or unless they're deliberately drawing attention. (Remember a lot of States in the US allow private citizens to walk down the street wearing an exposed sidearm without as much as a license to carry). People are so used these days to seeing individuals with holsters for something on their belts such as Blackberries, 'phones, multi-tools, whatever, that their eye just slides off yet another black leather bulge on the belt.
    Would you mind providing links, or further info about the incidents. I'm curious about them now.

    The first one was Garda Daryll Mullen, stabbed in Westport when trying to apprehend a youth.

    The second was Garda Paul Sherlock, a traffic corps Garda who received shotgun blasts to the chest after pulling over a car in North Strand, Dublin.

    There are other incidents, including blatant ones such as the Garda Sergeant shot and killed in 1985 after responding to a bank raid.

    NTM


  • #98
    tmi
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18 ✭tmi


    no way arming the guards with guns is just crazy


  • #99
    FlutterinBantam
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,575 ✭✭✭✭FlutterinBantam


    tmi wrote: »
    no way arming the guards with guns is just crazy

    C'mon man, why not.?

    Blow away a lot of useless dross from the avenues surely?

    Non -contributors.


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