Top 5 reasons not to arm cops

15
5

copmorph

Every time Greg O’Connor opens his mouth he says ‘Give cops guns’.

It must make for dull dinner parties.

Greg was singing his mantra again over the weekend in regards to the situation where police shot dead Vaughan Te Moananui on the Coromandel Peninsula after he allegedly threatened officers with a gun.

According to family, Vaughan had battled mental illness for some time, so Greg’s desire for guns makes even less sense. If we don’t want people with mental health issues shooting Police Officers, then maybe we need to boost our damaged and underfunded mental health services before arming the entire Police force.

This isn’t the first time Greg has used any old excuse to demand guns, in this case, Police in Christchurch were wandering around trying to find someone they intended to arrest, when they couldn’t find that person, they just randomly decided to burst into a house that smelled of cannabis. The result was an angry stoner who freaked out and started shooting. Greg held this example up as a reason why cops needed guns, but if you actually look at this case, the only way the Police could have avoided the situation they placed themselves in during this warrantless search would have been to enter the house with guns drawn.

Let’s just think about that – Greg is saying we need to give Police guns so they can make warrantless searches of your house with those guns drawn. Can you imagine how many NZers they would kill in the first month of operating like this? Cops kicking in doors with guns drawn for warrantless searches is not a solution, it’s the problem.

5 reasons not to arm NZ cops:

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

1 – NZ cops can’t be trusted: I hate to bring this up in a culture that has an authority worship fetish, but the NZ cops can’t be trusted with them all being armed. Look at this case , we had two frontline cops who lied about why they tasered a man, and then had 3 levels of check and balance cops above that – including the Police prosecutor – who knew the evidence was false, but lied and covered up for each other. That was over an illegal tasering, Christ only knows the level of deceit we would start seeing if it was over wrongful shootings.

2 – The cost: Again, what is utterly missed in this debate is the ill trained cops. We would need to embark upon a huge retraining of Police if they are going to be carrying guns all the time. That means fixed shooting gallery time and regular training sessions. Just handing guns out to every cop without the ongoing extra cost of training  would be irresponsible in the extreme. How mush ‘safer’ will NZ be for the millions in arming and training the cops with a new toy?

3 – recipe for civilian casualties: NZers are not going to accept cops coming into their homes with guns. You can almost see it in your minds eye, a domestic incident, Police turn up, with guns on their hips, people see the guns, start yelling at the Police to leave their property with a gun, one person advances on the other, guns get drawn, a mix of obstinance and anger results in a shooting. We are not a people who will tolerate big swinging dick cops coming into our personal spaces armed. The guns will become an immediate source of tension, and that tension will get played out time and time and time again.

4 – the militarisation of the police: We can vividly see in America what happens when the police force gets militarised. If the TPP gets signed, expect a flood of US services wanting to make their presence felt, including those who arm cops up to the teeth. Once we start down the ‘arm all police’ road, it never stops.

5 – 100 years of Police philosophy: We have a containment philosophy for NZ policing and we’ve had it for about a century. If a person poses the public or Police a threat with a weapon, the Police contain the situation until specialist trained teams turn up and resolve that conflict. That philosophy is far better in a civil democratic modern state than a pumped up cop force playing soldier boy with all guns blazing.

In short, we don’t have the checks and balances available to us to protect us from these ego bloated alpha males who watch way too many American cop movies.

NZ Police already kill large numbers of NZers every year from their poorly planned chase policy, let’s not arm them as well.

 

15 COMMENTS

  1. Have you ever been to the training Police undertake when they enter a house? I’m sure you could get an invite if you asked. They don’t get trained to go in with all guns blazing.

    • Do you actually have a point, Gosman, or do you simply drop in any old non-sequitor as a comment? Because what you wrote made no sense at all.

    • “They don’t get trained to go in with all guns blazing”

      thats the entire point – for every case where oconnor bangs on about arming the police its highly debateable whether having a side arm on the officer would have prevented the offender shooting or someone being injured

      And theres a pretty strong argument that it would lead to both sides shooting first

      its not rocket science

    • Gosman I agree with you, in general when the Police are armed they proceed with extreme caution. But the point is they are only armed when the situation deems it absolutely necessary, and in my opinion that’s the way it should stay.

  2. More guns, = more loose cannons, you can bet.

    Is NZ becoming this dangerous?

    It doesn’t feel like NY or Baltimore when I wandered these failed cities along with Detroit, Chicago and LA.

    Sure there are “special areas” you are told to to go into these cities and guns are required to protect you but iI don’t see this here do you?

    Sorry but I am sure even the NZ Police don’t want to be a target for armed combatants now because that leads down the path to an armed conflict as Baltimore.

    I will never forget huddling on the floor of a Bus as we approached Detroit when riots were going on that fateful March 1968 day that I vowed never to carry a firearm.

  3. I agree Martyn. Its a known fact that police are not the brightest bulbs and that is intentional.
    Worldwide the plan is to militarize the police to control the masses who are now acting out and understandably so. The police force will never want to be unarmed with all those “crazies running loose” who are victims of a financial and social decline caused mostly by greedy mega-corporations and wall street criminals and bank fraudsters, etc.

    These gun slinging half wits are ready to put the masses in concentration type facilities ready for use now. Trust most police and we are idiots.
    Give them guns and look out ! They will protect their own and will show very little regard for the rest of us and any victims they come in contact with. I know that there are a few good cops out there and this is not intended for them, but most are not good cops and surely should not be given guns.

    • Martyn
      Please can you put up the edited version of my above comment instead of the one you put up?

      also then can you delete this message

    • average people are being made criminals I speak from experience as a police officer targeted and threatened me just to get a promotion and I hadn’t broken the law
      I am middle age and never had a conviction but in the end the officers case fell flat
      I have not trusted the police(good guys?) since
      welcome nz to the police state (all you lemmings just don’t know it yet)

  4. Spot on Bomber. It,s just a ruse to help facilitate a hand over of power from the masses to the 0.01% elite, most of which are soon to be foreigners if JK stays in power much longer

  5. I’ve known cops in my life. Most are good, decent people who I’d trust with my life.

    A few, I wouldn’t trust with a rolled up wet towel in a men’s changing room.

    Arm the police and watch the death rate skyrocket.

    As for Greg O’Connor – the man gets a bit over-excited sometimes. What more can I say about a complete idiot?

  6. Given that the police have tasers (weren’t they supposed to be the best thing since sliced whatsit?) and pepper spray – what is the situation in which an ordinary police officer needs a gun?
    When they’re supposedly feeling threatened by someone with a golf club?

    The other impact, not much discussed, is that it creates a shift in relationship between citizen and police officer when the officer has a lethal weapon at their disposal. Where do trust and cooperation feature in the maintenance of law and order?

  7. Every time Greg O’Connor opens his mouth. . . the pumps at the sewerage works groan in anticipation of the extra work that they are going to have to do.

Comments are closed.