Should Britain’s police routinely carry firearms ?

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, Chairman 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 officer with the Metropolitan 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.