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(Image: WENN.com)

The terror attack at the heart of Westminster has reopened the debate about whether our police officers should now be routinely armed.

Every force in the UK has its own Firearms Unit, but the total number of armed officers in England and Wales fell from 6,906 in 2009 to 5,639 in March 2016.

Records show that in the 12 months to March 2016, police discharged their firearms on just seven occasions.

Here, two police experts give their view on whether more of our police should be armed.

No, says Steve White of the Police Federation of England and Wales and former firearms officer

A recent survey by the Metropolitan Police Federation suggested 50% of members want to be armed. That is not the case nationwide.

We represent 122,000 officers in England and Wales, 5,639 firearms trained, but the vast majority do not feel they wish to be, or need to be, routinely armed.

After the events at Westminster, the feeling in the service is understandably raw.

But I have certainly not had a flood of messages saying that because of this we should all be carrying a gun.

We HAVE been calling for a greater call-out of the new X2 Taser.

That could be done at the stroke of a pen, does not require much investment and involves three days training.

Training a firearms officer is far more complex.

And a very important principal in relation to the carrying of firearms is that the officer needs to volunteer to take on that extra responsibility, and not every officer wants to do that.

I was a firearms officer for six years. I volunteered to do it, I understood the risks and the requirements of training.

I was not ordered to carry a gun and I do not think others should be ordered to carry them either.

Yes, says Tony Long, a former firearms officers with the Met Police

I didn't know PC Keith Palmer personally, but I know he was highly regarded by colleagues.

I also don't know whether he would have wanted to carry a gun or if having one would have saved him - but it may have given him a better chance of survival.

A US colleague once summed it up when he asked me: "What do you train your officers to do at an armed robbery?"

When I said they were trained to get behind a wall and call for back-up, he replied: "So you train the police to do exactly what the public would do."

We put officers in body armour, accepting they may be shot at. To me it shows a lack of trust and respect for our officers that they are not allowed to carry a firearm.

I don't believe arming our police will reduce the threat of terrorism. But I absolutely believe officers carrying guns could help stop an attack in its tracks.

This time the terrorist aided police by running into an area where there are more firearms officers than anywhere else in the UK.

If he'd driven up the pavement at the other end of Whitehall he'd have killed a lot more people as mobile armed officers would have had to respond through grid-locked streets, find him, and neutralise the threat.

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After London terror attack - should all cops be armed? Arguments for and against

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The terror attack at the heart of Westminster has reopened the debate about whether our police officers should now be routinely armed. Every force in the UK has its own Firearms Unit, but the total number of armed officers in England and Wales fell from 6,906 in 2009 to 5,639 in March 2016.

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https://explorable.com/online-surveys
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/should-police-armed-arguments-against-9593864

Web.cortland.edu
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/22/one-in-three-uk-officers-want-all-police-to-carry-guns-survey-finds
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/after-london-terror-attack-should-10087838

https://www.aqr.org.uk/glossary/validity

(Bbc.co.uk, 2018)

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some people argue the fact with the police job is to protect the public so how can you do that if you cant protect yourself. on the other hand a lot of people say that they feel severely scared and uneasy apon seeing a officer armed with fire armed. this article give a huge comparison of the for and against parties in the debate.

When I said they were trained to get behind a wall and call for back-up, he replied: " you train the police to do exactly what the public would do"

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(Image: Getty)

The severe terrorist threat facing Britain has reignited one of our fiercest debates.

The Metropolitan Police Federation will ask its 30,000 officers if they want to be armed.

Currently most UK police do not carry guns.

Just a small, specially trained minority volunteer to be armed although the number is higher after the November 2015 Paris attacks which killed 130.

Officers will also be surveyed over their wish to carry a Taser.

Here, ex Met officers speak for and against arming police .

For
Tony Long, ex Met Police Team firearms
Your job is to protect the public. How you can do that if you cannot first protect yourself?

A US colleague once summed it up for me when he asked: "What do you train your officers to do at an armed robbery ?"

When I said they were trained to get behind a wall and call for back up, he replied: "So you train the police to do exactly what the public would do."

We put officers in body armour, accepting they may be shot at. To me it shows a lack of trust and respect for our officers that they are not allowed to carry a firearm.

I did around six years unarmed before I trained in firearms. But that was in the 70s, when times were very different.

Now, police are facing teens on BMX bikes with access to automatic weapons.

It is rubbish to suggest more criminals will carry guns if police do. We now train far fewer firearms officers than when I started, yet gun crime has not slowed.

I don't believe arming our police will reduce the threat of terrorism. But I absolutely believe officers carrying guns could help stop an attack in its tracks more quickly.

If the Nice attack happened in London how far would that lorry have travelled before it could be stopped with no armed officers?

The perpetrator of the Berlin Christmas market attack would not have faced armed police had he escaped through Britain.

We may have been facing dead officers - and a terrorist still on the run.

I do not believe it is possible for us to deploy our trained firearms teams to the scenes where they are needed quickly enough.

I understand that police enlist now under the belief they will not be carrying a gun. It is not for everyone.

I realise facilities are not in place to train thousands more officers.

But I do believe we should offer a stop-gap approach so capable, heavily vetted officers wanting to be trained can be and then can carry a handgun on duty.

This would not rip away the approachability of our officers.

Lethal Force by Tony Long, published by Ebury Press is now available to buy.

Against
Dai Davies, ex Met Police Chief
We have a severe terrorist threat hanging over this country.

But, in my view, arming police would not make the slightest difference to the threat's severity or to keeping the public and police safe.

In France, Turkey and Germany, which have tragically suffered the most recent terrorist attacks, police on the streets are very visibly armed but this did not deter those attacks.

It did nothing to stop Anis Amri driving a truck into a Berlin Christmas market at speed.

A terrorist bent on attacking, who does not care if he lives or dies, will not be stopped by the knowledge local police are armed.

And there is a far greater chance we will face a domestic abuse incident or a road traffic accident than a terrorist attack.

Training and arming police would put a huge strain on the force - taking resources from where we need them, in daily protection.

Firearms training facilities are not there for 20-30,000 officers, it would be impossible operationally and structurally.

Most senior officers have not been firearms trained and we don't have enough instructors.

I'm proud of our policing tradition. The belief that we do not arm our officers means each of us feel able to approach them, to see them as equals, and to trust them.

I feel uneasy seeing armed officers where they are not needed.

We have officers trained in firearms who are used when and where intelligence says they are required.

I'm all for reinforcing those numbers if statistics and safety say you should. But no one has shown me, statistically, they are currently not able to cope.

It is investment in intelligence and specialist training for our firearms teams which will help keep us and our police safe.

Not every officer is physically and psychologically able to handle a firearm or live with the guilt of using it.

We do not want officers who are trigger happy, the unnecessary loss of lives and a lengthy investigations process.

There's also the fear of accidental blue on blue shooting. Firing a gun is a huge responsibility to place on our police.

Violence can escalate violence, meaning there is a danger that if our police carried guns, more criminals would do so too.

Then our officers would be at greater risk.

Brit cops use guns just seven times in a year

The closest a British police force ever came to being routinely armed was in 1884 in London, following the murder of two officers.

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner gave officers permission to carry revolvers on night patrols.

This ended in 1936 when guns had to be kept in a locked cupboard at police stations.

In England and Wales, in the 12 months to March 2016, British police discharged their firearms on just seven occasions - the highest since 2009.

By contrast, 613 people had been killed by US police in 2016 up to last summer, a study found.

The US's gun homicide rate is 25 times higher than other high-income countries.

Meanwhile, the number of police officers authorised to use firearms has also been falling in a long-term trend.

In 2009 there were 6,906 in England and Wales compared with 5,639 in March 2016.

US officers faced riots in Ferguson, Missouri, in a series of police shootings in the town and across the country.

These also led to the Black Lives Matter protests in the US.

The majority of countries, both in Europe and around the world, have police officers carrying guns.

As well as mainland Britain, other countries which do not routinely arm officers are Norway, Iceland, New Zealand and Ireland.

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Should all our police be armed? The arguments for and against cops with guns

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The severe terrorist threat facing Britain has reignited one of our fiercest debates. The Metropolitan Police Federation will ask its 30,000 officers if they want to be armed. Currently most UK police do not carry guns. Just a small, specially trained minority volunteer to be armed although the number is higher after the November 2015 Paris attacks which killed 130.

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my results will be shown in graphs and tabular form. the results will then be analysed and then put into a conclusion

# data[].attributes.body
Quatitative data are anything that can be expressed as a number, or quantified. Examples of quantitative data are scores on achievement tests ,number of hours of study, or weight of a subject. These data may be represented by ordinal, interval or ratio scales and lend themselves to most statistical manipulation.

Qualitative data cannot be expressed as a number. Data that represent nominal scales such as gender, social economic status, religious preference are usually considered to be qualitative data. (Web.cortland.edu, 2018)

I will be using both types on data as that would give me the most accurate answers to my question.
I am using a questionnaire to collect my data, please see objective section for further information on the advantages and disadvantages of this.
I am using a non-random convenience sample.

Non-random sampling is a sampling technique where the samples are gathered in a process that does not give all the individuals in the population equal chances of being selected.(Explorable.com, 2018)
My sample to collect the data is my college colleges opinion on whether or not they feel like our police officers should be armed or not. there is a group of 6 girls and 5 boys.
Ethics-
the questionnaire is confidential and anonymous and the data will be kept for three years.
Validity-

"In its purest sense, this refers to how well a scientific test or piece of research actually measures what it sets out to, or how well it reflects the reality it claims to represent."https://www.aqr.org.uk/glossary/validity

need to make sure that my  questionnaire is valid to my question and allows me to answer main question.

Reliability -
"The repeatability of a particular set of research findings; that is, how accurately they would be replicated in a second identical piece of research."

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the aim of my current investigation is to see whether police officer should be trained and allowed to carry fire arms at all times.
objectives,
there are multiple steps to achieve my research aim. at first to conduct my research I will need to choose a suitable research tool. my research tool will be a online questionnaire, the advantages of this will be that my data is easily collected and added up electronically so it is easier for me. online questionnaires are very cheap and run for free or at a minimal cost. Additionally online questionnaires have a high response rate as they don't have a time limit on and they can think about the answers in there own time, which can insure they aren't rushing the survey. the disadvantages can include that if the interviewer doesn't have access to the internet they are unable to proceed with doing the questionnaire so they will be left out the results. Also an online survey is not suitable for a survey that ask open-ended questions as there isn't any body to look over the answers. (exploreable.com 16/01/2018). To conduct research I have to do secondary and primary research to make sure I am researching my topic well. Primary research is gathering new data that has not been collected before. for example surveys or questionnaires.  secondary,  existing data that has already been produced. For example, researching the internet, newspapers

(Bbc.co.uk, 2018)

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my hypothesis is whether police should be armed in the UK? or if they shouldn't be armed in the UK?

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why have you chosen the research there?
recently there has been a large number of terror attacks in the UK. if our police service were all armed then people who are following through with these terror attacks would feel threatened to do so as they would know our police officers are armed at all times. the west minister bridge terror attack could have been stopped before it got as bad as it was by using fire arms.
In 2017 a total of 127 people were killed in UK terror attacks the number of lives lost due to that could have been smaller if people felt threatened by the police.

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55% of the police officer want to be fire arms trained and carry fire arms.

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Police Federation finds 55% of rank and file in England and Wales would carry a firearm if asked or ordered to, up 11% on 2006

A majority of police officers are prepared to carry a firearm as longstanding opposition to being routinely armed melts in the face of escalating dangers.

A national survey by the Police Federation, which covers rank and file officers in England and Wales, found that 55% said they would carry a firearm if asked or ordered to, up 11% compared with when the last national survey was conducted in 2006. That response is different to the percentage who believe they and colleagues should be routinely armed, which was 34%, up since the last survey when it stood at 23%.

British police officers are traditionally unarmed, with guns going to those who volunteer and who undergo a high level of training. Only officers in Northern Ireland are routinely armed.

Of the officers who completed the survey 42.5% thought they and their colleagues should receive training and be armed as and when necessary, and did not back routine arming.

The survey demonstrates to the public that the mood is changing within policing after terrorist attacks and a rise in violent crime.

Within policing it bolsters the hand of those who think routine arming should be considered. Steve White, the chair of the federation, said: "I fear that we are moving inexorably to a situation where in some years time we will have to have a fully armed police service."

The Guardian revealed that Simon Chesterman, the national lead for armed policing, wrote a paper for police chiefs in July outlining how routine arming would work, including details on training. Responding to the federation's survey on behalf of the National Police Chiefs Council, Chesterman said: "We are now undertaking a further review of the level of armed policing in light of the significant shift in the terror threat to the UK. Chiefs remain committed to our model of policing with the principle of minimal use of force and a routinely unarmed service at its core.

"The review considers the risk to the public and our officers who are first on the scene. Chiefs will consider the initial findings of this review in October, along with the results of the Police Federation's survey on their members' views."

The federation represents more than 122,000 officers, of whom 23% replied to the survey.

Police outside of London are concerned because they have fewer guns than those in the capital and fear they might struggle to rush enough armed officers to the scene of a terrorist attack. In the survey, 56% of officers did not believe armed officers would arrive quickly enough if needed.

Ministers and police chiefs have been trying to increase the number of specially trained armed officers since the November 2015 terrorist attack on Paris, which left 130 people dead.

The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners' lead on use of force, Martyn Underhill, said: "We recognise that in recent times, policing has found itself operating within a rapidly evolving landscape. From the challenges posed by terrorism to the increase in reported knife crime, threats to public safety are constantly emerging and resources remain stretched.

"Against this backdrop, the debate on how to best equip officers has been brought to the fore, with forces nationally examining uplifts in firearms and Taser provision."
Topics

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Majority of police officers are prepared to carry guns, survey finds

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Police Federation finds 55% of rank and file in England and Wales would carry a firearm if asked or ordered to, up 11% on 2006 A majority of police officers are prepared to carry a firearm as longstanding opposition to being routinely armed melts in the face of escalating dangers.