Always good to have another opinion, and a very well informed opinion at that. It is very interesting that you seem to have similar career path as my pal, but the opposite view on this. I have no expertise on military protocol so will not attempt to disagree with what you say on that front. However in a civilian (police) role it is clearly alarming to learn that some (or most?) forces have actively determined that “high ready” is an appropriate standard operating practice. The proportion of call outs that encounter an active, armed threat must be minuscule?
Got arrested this morning
- Thread starter Silvius
- Start date
63
Well-Known Member
To be clear, I’ve never been a cop, but I have exercised alongside armed police and never detected any significant difference in their appetite for pointing weapons at people (but a very different approach to a whole load of other things). Your friend and I’s differing views may be due to serving in different eras or different contexts, although I must admit I am surprised he is so leery of soldiers pointing guns at people. Was he an infantryman?
To be clear, by ‘High ready’ I am taking you to mean ‘rifle in the shoulder pointing directly at the target as though about to fire’? I only ask because high ready/high port/in the shoulder are all terms used differently in different organisations.
Personally I find it bizarre that you find it so troubling? The police have firearms to shoot people with, so it stands to reason they point them at people. It doesn’t really matter how often they have to actually shoot, when they do it needs to be quick and accurate, so why start further behind the starting block? Pointing a weapon at someone as an escalation technique to demonstrate intent and gain compliance is also common sense.
I guess an equivalent would be to say you should never look at a deer through your riflescope unless you’re already 100% sure you’re going to shoot it.
63
Well-Known Member
Before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusion, I don’t go poking my rifle up people’s noses when I’m stalking/shooting, and I’m not suggesting that pointing a sporting firearm at anyone as a private individual is ever acceptable. I’m just suggesting that sporting shooting and tactical weapons use are apples and oranges.
No, I think the equivalent would be pointing my loaded rifle into a car with occupants in it. I understand your point about apples and oranges, but for me it is a fundamental, and I would choose to live in a society where that is a red line.
My pal was in the Welsh Cavalry (Queen’s Dragoon Guards) as sniper specialist in Iraq and Afghanistan. Following return he was with Essex Police. He has not had the same level of close-up interaction you have had, and I am quoting him third party versus your first hand experience, but to bring this back to the OP there is (and should be) a very different approach in military SOP in a war zone versus civilian (police) SOP in a rural setting. If as an armed officer you suddenly see every call out as dealing with an enemy combatant, rather than policing through consent, then we need a fundamental restructuring of police culture.
Surely a rifle slung on a shoulder, carried in one hand is a low threat that doesn't need an gun aimed at the first interaction. It's not like there is a risk from a bomb vest. A low ready will still be quick enough without being so confrontational from the get go.
Going by some of the logic here, why not greet all members of the public with Tazer / PAVA drawn, just in case?
Going by some of the logic here, why not greet all members of the public with Tazer / PAVA drawn, just in case?
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markj1
Well-Known Member
And then there are incidents like this where a minimal response happens!!
Gun terror as boy shoots ducks and geese in Central Forest Park
Police are investigatingwww.stokesentinel.co.uk
From the article:
“I couldn’t make out exactly what kind of guns they were; I don’t think they were air rifles, because they weren’t gas powered. They looked like handguns. If they were trying to hunt I’m guessing they were firing metal ball bearings.
“They managed to hit a bird. It didn’t die, but it flew off in pain. I felt really sorry for the poor thing. They just carried on, they didn’t care. The lad went down on one knee like he was a soldier or something. He went right up close and just started shooting.”
By the sound of it, there were air pistols. I seriously doubt that the police would have responded the way they did if they thought that someone was shooting a firearm in a public place.
Obviously, this is illegal, reckless, dangerous to members of the public and cruel to the animals. But I can see why this is not being investigated with the same urgency as reports of someone in possession of a (say) 9mm pistol, let alone actually using it.
63
Well-Known Member
If he was QDG I doubt his numbers are dissimilar to mine - it doesn’t take long when you’re on the streets interacting with locals constantly. He probably just hasn’t sat and done the finger maths.
We can agree to disagree about what is hypothetically or morally right; but the fundamental point remains that in practice, and whether you like it or not, physically pointing a firearm at someone is not, in policing or military training, seen as the massive rubicon it is in sporting shooting. Pointing a firearm at someone is done frequently in the military, and slightly less frequently in the Police. The rubicon line in both those contexts is actually shooting people, and covering a potential threat with a pointed firearm is in many scenarios seen as the right thing to do. Policing by consent doesn’t mean saying ‘please’ in every encounter.
So what? As shooters we need to bear in mind that if an ARV gets called on you they will perceive you, to some degree, as a threat. To what extent they regard you as a threat will depend on their individual experience and knowledge, and to a very large extent what was said on the phone (and potentially what else is going on around as per the Chequers comments above). When they turn up and you are in fact holding a firearm, it is possible they’ll point their firearms at you until everyone has figured out what is going on. Remember that as you also have a firearm you have parity with them, in terms of violent potential, so they will be seeking to ensure their safety. I imagine it is also incredibly rare for an ARV to attend an incident and find that there actually IS a firearm there, the police officer in question may well be seeing a 'civilian' with a gun in their hands for the first time. Take Uncle Jules' advice and 'Be cool'
Regards describing the UK police as seeing the public as enemy combatants in war zones....that is hyperbole akin to describing stalking as 'People torturing deer to death'. In war zones enemy combatants can (and are) shot on sight - the police did not turn up and shoot the OP, high five, then leave. To stave off the inevitable, neither Iraq (post invasion) nor Afghanistan were war zones, and neither the various militias in Iraq nor the Taliban were legally defined enemy combatants, in legal terms both were, broadly speaking, high risk policing actions. Eastern Ukraine is a 'war zone'- there's plenty of footage online if you want to establish how such things are handled in war.
I've skated over a bit of complexity in my perspective here to challenge the assertion that the police and military should NEVER point a weapon at anyone unless they have already decided to shoot them, and that any police officer or soldier who does so is an 'idiot' and 'ill trained'. My point is that in general terms pointing weapons at people is something that the police and military do an awful lot, that it is taught to them as an appropriate part of their tool kit, and that if you are stopped by an ARV when out shooting you should recognise that it is a possibility it will happen to you. (and that if it does it probably doesn't represent an egregious miss-step by the police)
In terms of this specific incident, I personally would agree with you that pointing a weapon is on the face of it, OTT in this incident (Although we don't know how pointed it was, generally at the OPs knees, or shoved into his face?), but I would characterise it as being towards one end of a spectrum of understandable responses rather than outrageously inappropriate. We don't know very much about the Police Officers perspective on the incident going in - what were they told by the control room? What were there expectations? What was there level of experience? The OP described them as 'polite' though, so I doubt they were too assertive with him.
More broadly, I was driving at what looks to me like a hypocrisy. As sporting shooters we frequently complain that 'urban folk' (or whomever) do not understand shooting, stalking or our use of firearms in our context and seek to impose their perspectives and rules on us. Plenty of people on here have been doing exactly the same thing to 'tactical' firearms users such as the police and military. Their use of firearms, the risks they have to take and what is appropriate behaviour is different to a sporting context, and shouldn't be judged on sporting criteria any more than stalking should be judged by central London criteria.
Anyone points a firearm in my direction I move out of the arc of fire, with admonishments.
If I am not hold a switch & wearing a vest, OR pointing my firearm at an armed policeman / woman, I don't want them pointing theirs at me.!
If I am not hold a switch & wearing a vest, OR pointing my firearm at an armed policeman / woman, I don't want them pointing theirs at me.!
kenbro
Well-Known Member
Might not be the best idea if under police instruction?
Ken.
Can you tell what people are carrying about there person in poor light and at a distance? Until you can confirm that physically, then there is a threat
Why, you think I might be shot?
Unless a shot is intended, don't point at me directly.
We have seen tendency towards this in Norway too, and so far guns have never been the issue, but umbrellas , musical instruments and other items that someone thinks looks like a weapon. People will die from this in the end. To have a loaded firearm pointed at you is dangerous. The only thing separating life from death is a policeman's/woman's judgement. And when you get that gun pointed at you, you already know that judgement is poor.
I thought I couldn't be on my own with this one.
nath_
Well-Known Member
Surely if they have seen your vehicle, ran a check they can confirm you are an FAC holder. A quick call to confirm that it is you, followed by a much less dramatic scale of events would have been the more logical way for them to approach this situation. (Assuming they did indeed see your vehicle etc).
I’m 50/50 on this. It’s a very heavy handed approach, and could have been handled a lot better. Flip side is if I suspected illegal poaching I would expect a police response. However I would also expect a police response if my house was broken or my van stolen but I think we all know that wouldn’t happen. Strange old world we’re living in.
I’m 50/50 on this. It’s a very heavy handed approach, and could have been handled a lot better. Flip side is if I suspected illegal poaching I would expect a police response. However I would also expect a police response if my house was broken or my van stolen but I think we all know that wouldn’t happen. Strange old world we’re living in.
markj1
Well-Known Member
Regarding the armed response unit, I imagine that they simply followed SOP, and that the 'weapons drawn' was part of the protocol for dealing with incidents where the presence of a firearm has been reported.
As I posted earlier, this is also the standard procedure for almost all police forces in the US, even when dealing with a member of the public who has a CCP and legally carries a gun, until the firearm has been secured.
Perhaps in the same way that placing a suspect in handcuffs when they are arrested is part of the standard process for UK police forces.
As I posted earlier, this is also the standard procedure for almost all police forces in the US, even when dealing with a member of the public who has a CCP and legally carries a gun, until the firearm has been secured.
Perhaps in the same way that placing a suspect in handcuffs when they are arrested is part of the standard process for UK police forces.
This definitely not SOP in Norway and certanly not in the US either. Hunters are routinely checked by game wardens there to make sure that they have the needed hunting licenses. If they had pointed guns in their faces, there would have been an uproar. And all hunters carry guns as a routine, when they hunt. All this nonsense are caused by letting hysteria becoming SOP...
It wasn't in Norway though, and both countries you mention have much more involvement in hunting and are less removed from it as a pass time
kenbro
Well-Known Member
If an armed police person pointed a gun at you and told you to stay put, are you saying you’d walk away with a fcuck you?
Kb.
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