Should the police be armed? Poll
jjf | 19.11.2005 08:26 | Anti-militarism | Anti-racism | Repression
Sky 'News' are asking their viewers whether police should be armed in the light of the Bradford incident. Here's your chance to give them your opinion: http://www.sky.com/skynews/home
jjf
Comments
Hide the following 17 comments
Yes, of course they should!
19.11.2005 16:55
Cue the usual bleeding hearts bleating about that Brazilian blokey etc etc etc...
Pro-police
Should be good to see
19.11.2005 18:05
fgh
Dead Cops Now!
19.11.2005 18:41
harry
logically, there is no debate
19.11.2005 19:40
So, logically, there is NO DEBATE AT ALL. So, if there is a debate, it is most certainly NOT for any logical reasons. Thus we are straight into psy-ops, we should be apparent to all, given the saturation coverage on the Mass Media.
So, what do the psy-ops goons want from us. Answer- that Blair's murderous power confronts us on a daily basis. He (and thus his New Reich goons here and elsewhere) wants us to see his state thugs wielding murder machines that we KNOW can and will be used against us without penalty, if we step out of line.
The game is FEAR. When the game is played properly, the threat is more than good enough to suppress the vast majority of us, so the actually killing part stays rare. Ironically, the price of instilling this fear is a MASSIVE increase in the numbers of policepersons who will be shot in any given year (as proven by nations that already use these methods). Of course, more dead police is of no more concern to Blair or his New Reich goons than more dead "soldiers" in Afghanistan or Iraq. They are just "cannon fodder" whose expenditure is just a means to an end.
REMEMBER- the New Reich will NEVER engage in a logical argument, any more than the Third Reich did before them. Instead, Blair's methods are purely ones of abuse of power, especially violence, psy-ops and black propaganda. HE controls the Mass Media agenda, which is the main reason places like this are under constant press attack. Blair's chosen battlegrounds are places where he thinks he has an excellent chance of victory. Never fight a battle at a time and a place of your enemy's choosing, unless you have no other choice.
twilight
Yooo Hooo, Twilight
19.11.2005 20:34
Well I'm against arming the Police, but the first question anyone considering Twi'i't's comment is going to pose it how many were shot and injured, or killed/injured by other weapons.
To quote Vic Reeves, 96.35% of statistics are made up on the spot....
Observer
Statistics
20.11.2005 01:33
Humpty Dumpty
"And I'm sure with the social decay and the influx of immigrants"
20.11.2005 08:14
Funny how everytime an ordinary person is shot theres a call to ban or further restrict public guns, when every time an agent of the state (innocent or not) is shot, theres a call to further arm the state.
pistolero
Numpty Dumpty deserves a big fall
20.11.2005 15:13
Fear of the different is for weak little losers. Like you, Numpty.
you old tosser
.
20.11.2005 17:05
As for being an ex-pat, I don't know what gave you that impression. And I'm certainly far from being old!
Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty
21.11.2005 09:58
Watch the stalinist editors remove this post and you'll see what i mean.
Baitman
To Wankman and DUMP-ty
21.11.2005 15:09
Secondly, I'm glad you made the comparison between the police and the SS because there have been 1,000 civilians murdered by the police between 1969 and 1999 in Britain. (quoted from the 'Injustice' video about people murdered by the police - See the Injustice website for more info). In the majority of cases the victim was black but some cases were against white, working class people. (NB: I'm not sure if these figures include Catholics murdered by the RUC in Northern Ireland).
The figure quoted by the BBC was about 200 police killed on duty since 1830 when the modern force was invented. Given that the police are so much more adept at murdering members of the public than vice versa, it would be more logical to be campaigning for civilians to be issued with guns in order to protect themselves from the police.
Also, I doubt if John Stevens (ex-Met Chief) would be so quick to call for the return of the death penalty if it was going to apply to pigs who murdered innocent people. My final point on the police would be to recall a Daily Telegraph headline from Nov 2003 tiled 'Scandal of Nazi police' about how the BNP has dozens of paid up members in London, the west mids and the north west. I also recall a story a few years ago about how Natinal Front material was being passed around a London police office. Clearly no Nazis in that organisation then!
Uncle Joe
Response
21.11.2005 22:03
First off, the police are civilians.
Second, pull up a news (yes, big scary corporate news) article that backs up the claim that the police have killed 1000 people between 69 and 99. Fuck it, find one that says the police have killed 1000 people in the last century.
I’d rather listen to a corporate news article that a video titled ‘injustice’ ‘about people murdered by the police.’ – Really unbias sounding don’t you think? And you quote the BBC below anyway...
“The figure quoted by the BBC was about 200 police killed on duty since 1830 when the modern force was invented. Given that the police are so much more adept at murdering members of the public than vice versa, it would be more logical to be campaigning for civilians to be issued with guns in order to protect themselves from the police.”
Yes, because armed robbers who are willing to kill shop owners, members of the public, and unarmed police women are less of a threat than the po-po? So you’re against all police being armed (I am too), but you think its more logical for members of the public to have guns than for the police to be armed? It’s a pretty safe guess that there are more criminals that cops, and that armed robbers kill and injure more people than cops, yet you think the cops are more dangerous? Do you think a police officer would go out and kill random members of the public for personal gain? Do you think a man (or woman, lets not be sexist) that’s willing to kill unarmed police would care about killing you or your family during a robbery?
‘My final point on the police would be to recall a Daily Telegraph headline from Nov 2003 tiled 'Scandal of Nazi police' about how the BNP has dozens of paid up members in London, the west mids and the north west.’
Okay, so there are apparantly ‘dozens’ of BNP payed cops. Since when was the BNP a criminal organisation able to infultrate the police? When I last looked they were a bunch of washed out hooligans looking for some ‘pakis’ to beat up. And even if it was true, I think there’re more than a few dozen cops in the police. ‘Dozens’ doesn’t exactly bring images of a massive Nazi SS racist killing force. And there are racists in every large organisation. I doubt Sharon Beshenivsky was one of those ‘dozens.’
‘Clearly no Nazis in that organisation then!’
Well unless there are German cops in their 90s in the British police, I think the claim that there are ‘Nazis’ in the police is unlikely.
And lastly, why does indymedia allow;
“ ‘Dead Cops Now!
19.11.2005 18:41
Of course they shouldn''t be be armed - we should.
harry “
?
A police woman with five children has been killed on her youngest daughters birthday. Have a bit of heart you sicko.
MB
To MB
22.11.2005 12:12
http://www.injusticefilm.co.uk/filmfacts.html
Uncle Joe
Correction
22.11.2005 14:32
Uncle Joe
Uncle Joe...
22.11.2005 17:44
Don't they have an independant witness checking each police cell these days and asking each prisoner if they're okay? Not to mention the alcohol and drug re-hab people who ask each prisoner if they want any treatment.
MB
Get your statistics right
22.11.2005 21:27
Taken literally, this is entirely factual, but the implication given from the context that some police should have been convicted for some or even all of these deaths is highly misleading. In the absolutely vast majority of these cases, the reason why there were no convictions, indeed, no charges, is that there were no crimes. The deaths are not suspicious, disputed or unlawful.
Matters are worse when speed-reading activists translate "1000 deaths in custody" into "1000 murders by police in custody".
1000 deaths over 30 years is only 33 a year, a somewhat less dramatic statistic when put in those terms. I'd imagine that less than one of those per year is actually disputed or suspicious. But rather than imagining, how about Injustice displaying some intellectual honesty and telling us the exact number of cases they're campaigning about, rather than plying us with an unrelated, if accurate, statistic?
So how many is it? 1000, or somewhat nearer ten? If so, Injustice are guilty of a one-hundredfold exaggeration that seriously undermines its credibility, rather than helps it to campaign effectively on this serious issue.
Zorro
In the real world...
25.11.2005 23:34
Never been arrested or in prison have you? Having sampled both, I can tell you I've never seen any such thing. Ever. The 'medical' when you get banged up is basically to check if you've still got a pulse and beyond that they don't give a shit.
I could recount endless examples from personal experience of why the cops shouldn't be trusted with lethal weapons (or indeed motor vehicles that go over 30mph), but I'm sure to anyone who's been on the wrong end of it, I'd just be stating the obvious.
This is a non-argument anyway. Any fool can do the maths - give cops guns and more people die. Unless you're fucked up in the head, you can't think that's a good thing.
Yorkshire RASH