Armed response!

[Dunwaters]

Judging by this thread, and a couple of similar ones, your police have adopted a policy of reacting to reports of incidents involving “firearms” in a somewhat aggressive and robust manner, even when the report involves children/minors.
The policy of armed response should be reviewed, it WILL result in civilian casualties.
Safety margins are wafer thin, treating every report involving firearms as if it is terrorist/gangster related is disproportionate and unnecessary.

 

[topscots1]

Bean bags to my knowledge are not used in the UK - they're also pretty ineffective.


I think you've demonstrated your dislike for the police over multiple threads now, but quite honestly your ideas on what should be being done are dangerous and a bad look on legal firearm owners and incredibly contradictory.

You're unhappy with police responding to well intentioned 999 calls exactly how they're are trained but think theft suspects should be shot with potentially lethal projectiles.. okay

you are correct they are not used in the UK. I caveated my statement as some forces may have trialed them. To appease those whose knowledge comes from Google. Discussion years ago looked at replacing the Baton gun and baton round. However it was deemed a waste of time the baton gun was updated with a new sighting system.

As a lad in the 70s thankfully living in a very quiet part of Belfast, there was still quite a market for fired baton rounds especially with those who were less inclined towards the police and army. I am not sure what they were made from but I do think rubber?
Anyhow - they were definitely hard, very hard - apparently they were more effective if bounced in front of the intended targets…

In the early 70s they would have been rubber, the transition occurred between 73 and 76. Small local stocks of old rounds may have remained after this.

 

[jcalleja91]

Judging by this thread, and a couple of similar ones, your police have adopted a policy of reacting to reports of incidents involving “firearms” in a somewhat aggressive and robust manner, even when the report involves children/minors.
The policy of armed response should be reviewed, it WILL result in civilian casualties.
Safety margins are wafer thin, treating every report involving firearms as if it is terrorist/gangster related is disproportionate and unnecessary.

This is where the stories that started this thread, and threads like this in general completely miss the mark and paint a very skewed picture of what actually happens every day.

The headlines you see in the news are there because someone is after a pay day. Sometimes justified, mostly not.

There are probably thousands of incidents every day that are assessed for the consideration of deployment of firearms officers. Of the hundreds that do require a firearms response, very few end with the discharge of any firearm, less lethal or otherwise.

And on the extremely rare occasion where the discharge of a weapon occurs, there are very few 'civilian casualties' or shootings that are considered unjustified... i think the system is fine.

 

[Dunwaters]

This is where the stories that started this thread, and threads like this in general completely miss the mark and paint a very skewed picture of what actually happens every day.

The headlines you see in the news are there because someone is after a pay day. Sometimes justified, mostly not.

There are probably thousands of incidents every day that are assessed for the consideration of deployment of firearms officers. Of the hundreds that do require a firearms response, very few end with the discharge of any firearm, less lethal or otherwise.

And on the extremely rare occasion where the discharge of a weapon occurs, there are very few 'civilian casualties' or shootings that are considered unjustified... i think the system is fine.

We can agree to differ, personally I don’t think pointing guns at kids or adults going about their lawful business and screaming at them to lie down is “fine”.
I think it’s over the top an incident waiting to happen and a tripped trigger sear away from tragedy
The threat just doesn’t justify that level of response in the vast majority of call outs.

 

[skinnywhitetrash]

We can agree to differ, personally I don’t think pointing guns at kids or adults going about their lawful business and screaming at them to lie down is “fine”.
I think it’s over the top an incident waiting to happen and a tripped trigger sear away from tragedy
The threat just doesn’t justify that level of response in the vast majority of call outs.

Don’t take what you read/see in the media as the whole truth. When it comes to UK policing the facts are rarely allowed to temper a good story.

 

[jcalleja91]

We can agree to differ, personally I don’t think pointing guns at kids or adults going about their lawful business and screaming at them to lie down is “fine”.
I think it’s over the top an incident waiting to happen and a tripped trigger sear away from tragedy
The threat just doesn’t justify that level of response in the vast majority of call outs.

Looking at the end of the incident without context, it's probably very easy to come to that conclusion.

Ultimately that incident would have likely started with a well intentioned 999 call from someone who believed they saw young gang members threatening someone else with a firearm. If you would like the police to respond to that with a traditional "Hello, Hello, Hello, what's going on here then", then we'd end up with a lot more instances of police officers being threatened, hurt or killed.

And for every call like this, there are 10 others where genuinely bad people with bad intentions are stopped from doing naughtiness.

But the police won't actively report on all of these incidents as the government and media would accuse them of scare mongering.

99% of the general public, are blissfully unaware of the amount of gun crime their actually is in this country, and even the well reported knife crime epidemic is grossly underestimated in the media, as are the efforts to deal with perpetrators of knife crime.

 

[paulst]

Don’t take what you read/see in the media as the whole truth. When it comes to UK policing the facts are rarely allowed to temper a good story.

Have to agree with this. In every incident that I have had personal knowledge of that has appeared in the media, it has been factually incorrect. Not a huge number of incidents but a 100% record of misreporting to some extent.

 

[Dunwaters]

Don’t take what you read/see in the media as the whole truth. When it comes to UK policing the facts are rarely allowed to temper a good story.

Looking at the end of the incident without context, it's probably very easy to come to that conclusion.

Ultimately that incident would have likely started with a well intentioned 999 call from someone who believed they saw young gang members threatening someone else with a firearm. If you would like the police to respond to that with a traditional "Hello, Hello, Hello, what's going on here then", then we'd end up with a lot more instances of police officers being threatened, hurt or killed.

And for every call like this, there are 10 others where genuinely bad people with bad intentions are stopped from doing naughtiness.

But the police won't actively report on all of these incidents as the government and media would accuse them of scare mongering.

99% of the general public, are blissfully unaware of the amount of gun crime their actually is in this country, and even the well reported knife crime epidemic is grossly underestimated in the media, as are the efforts to deal with perpetrators of knife crime.

I’m not concerned about a single incident, there are literally scores of them, you can do your own search, and the common theme is over reaction and disproportionate response from the police when dealing with reported firearms incidents.
If the report relates to a gang of young men in hoodies brandishing firearms in a city centre or major transport hub, thats one thing. If the report relates to a couple of men with guns wearing camouflage hiding in a Berkshire hedge, thats a completely different situation.
That difference needs to be recognised before the squad in black uniform is instructed and deployed.
The police should recognise that the vast majority of people using firearms are vetted and law abiding, treating them all as dangerous adversaries is not helpful.
They don’t treat every driver at a routine traffic stop as if they are a dangerous car jacker.
When we deal with the police in our day to day interactions, we expect them to be polite and proportionate in their response, why should I expect a routinely confrontational response just because I have a licensed firearm in my possession?

 

[jcalleja91]

If the report relates to a couple of men with guns wearing camouflage hiding in a Berkshire hedge, thats a completely different situation.

Agree.. and 99% of the time this would be responded to by unarmed officers UNLESS the call caused the enough concern that there was a potential risk of that firearm being used against public or police.

Again, it's only the 1% of actual incidents reported by the media or discussed by disgruntled firearms holders on forums that actually get heard of.

Armed officers were deployed to someone shooting pigeons on syndicate ground near me the other day.. sounds over the top.

But then some CCTV stills emerged over the guy basically shooting pigeons off of people's roofs from their backgarden fence backing onto the land.. that person may be on this forum for all I know and I bet you they'd tell the story very differently to their shooting pals of how that encounter occurred and how they did nothing wrong.

 

[hendrix's rifle]

So, has anyone actually done any digging in to this or taken it at face value?
I did. I've located the kids mums post regarding it.... Not quite as first appears. I'll add the screenshot below.

Also worth noting, whilst it was a nerf gun, it was painted black hopefully a couple of you simmer down a little

If you can't be arsed reading the below, effectively both kids have been 'playing', one had aimed the nerf gun (allegedly sprayed black) at his mate and told him to put his hands up.

Member of public has presumably seen teenager/child holding black gun up to another lad. That pretty much explains the police response by the sounds of it

 

[hendrix's rifle]

Or enough functioning brain cells.

...and not a teenage gang armed with intergalactic laser blasters vaporising grannies, with foam missiles.

How closely, and for how long, do you think it would take a highly trained expert police marksman to examine a NERF gun and work out if it was real or not? They don't look even remotely like real guns. You can choose any model of NERF gun at all.
If the police must keep insisting on full-armed reactions to every fantasist's report of children playing, the least they could do is arrest and charge the fools who call these things in, rather than endlessly encouraging more false alarm calls so they can keep pretending we need more and more armed police, more tax and so on.

Looks like you need to see my post

 

[simgre]

So, has anyone actually done any digging in to this or taken it at face value?
I did. I've located the kids mums post regarding it.... Not quite as first appears. I'll add the screenshot below.

Also worth noting, whilst it was a nerf gun, it was painted black hopefully a couple of you simmer down a little

If you can't be arsed reading the below, effectively both kids have been 'playing', one had aimed the nerf gun (allegedly sprayed black) at his mate and told him to put his hands up.

Member of public has presumably seen teenager/child holding black gun up to another lad. That pretty much explains the police response by the sounds of it

Well, all seems a little different when you read the “mum’s post”…

 

[gixer1]

So, has anyone actually done any digging in to this or taken it at face value?
I did. I've located the kids mums post regarding it.... Not quite as first appears. I'll add the screenshot below.

Also worth noting, whilst it was a nerf gun, it was painted black hopefully a couple of you simmer down a little

If you can't be arsed reading the below, effectively both kids have been 'playing', one had aimed the nerf gun (allegedly sprayed black) at his mate and told him to put his hands up.

Member of public has presumably seen teenager/child holding black gun up to another lad. That pretty much explains the police response by the sounds of it

Where does the “allegedly sprayed black” come from?

 

[hendrix's rifle]

Where does the “allegedly sprayed black” come from?

Numerous reports state the nerf gun had been sprayed black. Do a bit of digging, see what you find

 

[Mike L]

Numerous reports state the nerf gun had been sprayed black. Do a bit of digging, see what you find

I have, can’t find anything locally, can you post a link to your information on the black spray please.

 

[hendrix's rifle]

I have, can’t find anything locally, can you post a link to your information on the black spray please.

Not sure if I'm going to find it again now tbh, not really that interested either. It's definitely out there. Maybe check the parents Facebook page?

 

[Bowland blades]

Pathetic if the cops really said that ! I have my doubts about the facts tbf ! News papers etc blow things up because that's how they earn a crust !
If it's true its yet again going to be a training and recruitment issue within the force that's at fault .

 

[Doctorken]

As a lad in the 70s thankfully living in a very quiet part of Belfast, there was still quite a market for fired baton rounds especially with those who were less inclined towards the police and army. I am not sure what they were made from but I do think rubber?
Anyhow - they were definitely hard, very hard - apparently they were more effective if bounced in front of the intended targets…

I was told by someone with experience firing these from that time....they bounce nicely when aimed at the floor into the faces of the intended target, and apparently, D batteries fitted quite nicely in the tube too...maybe explain some of those "harder" rounds.......

 

[purdeydog]

Judging by this thread, and a couple of similar ones, your police have adopted a policy of reacting to reports of incidents involving “firearms” in a somewhat aggressive and robust manner, even when the report involves children/minors.
The policy of armed response should be reviewed, it WILL result in civilian casualties.
Safety margins are wafer thin, treating every report involving firearms as if it is terrorist/gangster related is disproportionate and unnecessary.

That isn't what happens at at. Each incident is graded by an inspector (unless its so urgent there's no time) and a level of response is decided from a basic hello to a full on 'bash up' and various levels in-between. If what the officers on the ground see warrants lesser or greater response then they will deal with accordingly. We don't believe everything we read on the BBC about shooting as we know its mostly factual wrong and policing stories are no different. Same as what's written on this site, mostly wrong.

 

[topscots1]

Pathetic if the cops really said that ! I have my doubts about the facts tbf ! News papers etc blow things up because that's how they earn a crust !
If it's true it’s yet again going to be a training and recruitment issue within the force that's at fault .

If as has now come out the teenagers were carrying black painted NERF guns which appeared to be real firearms I can see that being said. There is a reason NERF and airsoft guns in general sale are painted bright colours. A toy gun designed to be a realistic representation of a real firearm should be treated as if it were a real firearm if reported in a crime.