A guy from Carfin, Lanarkshire, who phoned the police and told them he had a gun was eventually cornered on a rail-yard and shot by the cops. It seems that after this shooting had taken place it was found that the "gun" was in fact a piece of wood. ( No gun has been found after a massive search !).

If this is the case then I find it astounding that armed police are unable to satisfy themselves that a person is actually brandishing a real gun before they get trigger-happy.

It almost seems as if they are in a real hurry to discharge their own weapons without any aforethought about these potentially deadly acts.

How many times in the past have we seen armed coppers shooting someone who turned out to be innocent ? Surely they have better ways to decide if a person is a danger to himself or others BEFORE they start shooting ?

Another case of "attempted suicide by cop" I think.

You would think that the cops might know this and that they would at least try to hit the person where it will do the least long-term harm. I mean, did they have to shoot the guy in the stomach.

A good question Angie ! I don't know either !

I do know - having gone through this training myself - that the people who are trained to use firearms - specifically handguns - are trained to shoot at the largest target available and that is usually the torso. Trained snipers are different as they can often choose to fire a head-shot or a leg shot in order to take down a target.

I guess that you have to have been there to know exactly what was going through the mind of the cop with the gun. Conjecture gets us nowhere in such situations.

They are supposed to shoot only if they believe their own and other lives are being threatened per the cops I know.. (which do include the gendarme back home). But I do think there is a big difference between a a table leg and a gun. (whatever - this mirrors a case on London in which the officers were charged with manslaughter and acquitted). I do not know how far away they were from the person or how he was pointing this alleged stick/table leg or whatever. From their angle - it may well have looked like a gun being cocked to fire at them. Perhaps conjecture should wait till the IPCC or whatever applies to Scotland has finished all investigations.

I agree F.F. !

I just think that this knd of incidence is happening far too often for the training that the armed cops get to be working properly.

Having been armed myself at one point, ( not in the army or the police BTW ), I know that carrying a loaded gun creates a situation where the person carrying it is always looking for a situation whereby they might take it out and use it.

When an armed agent carries a firearm for hundreds of hours it starts to get a bit like having a load of money in ones pocket and not being able to spend it. Such people get regular visits to ranges where they are supposed to be able to get rid of this feeling but I can tell you now that it doesn't. Maybe this is why some armed cops get troubled by itchy trigger-finger syndrome ?

papa_umau wrote:I agree F.F. !

I just think that this knd of incidence is happening far too often for the training that the armed cops get to be working properly.

I think that UK police are not trained well enough. I also think that a handful are rather arrogant too. I should not really bring what another said on a different messageboard .. but ...we've read the same comments across the internet.

Namely

persons claiming to be police officers on other messageboards wrote:

Police should not be prosecuted for doing their jobs. The press are ant-police. They have been trained to higher levels than members of the public..

I paraphrase in general but agree that this makes me feel rather more than a little worried that some "police officers" hold those views and say them in a public forum.

Papau-mau wrote:
Having been armed myself at one point, ( not in the army or the police BTW ), I know that carrying a loaded gun creates a situation where the person carrying it is always looking for a situation whereby they might take it out and use it.

When an armed agent carries a firearm for hundreds of hours it starts to get a bit like having a load of money in ones pocket and not being able to spend it. Such people get regular visits to ranges where they are supposed to be able to get rid of this feeling but I can tell you now that it doesn't. Maybe this is why some armed cops get troubled by itchy trigger-finger syndrome ?

I will agree some are carried away by a sense of their own self importance. I think that police volunteering for ARV/RPU etc require some pyschological/psychometric/personality testing to ensure they have that calm cool which all who use weapons this way require.

Better still don't give them a weapon at all FF!

Red

Unlike as in America and in some European and other foreign countries I have NEVER been in favour of routinely arming the ordinary police BUT....there does come times when police DO need to have the ultimate deterrent available to them if only - as has been said before - to protect themselves and other members of the public from similarly armed offenders.

That is why we have the armed response units in Britain that can be called on very quickly when a civilan appears with a firearm on the streets of Britain.

This is a very difficult balance to maintain as we just do not get armed offenders appearing in Britain nearly as much as they do in many other countries and that means that the armed officers are carrying loaded weapons for many hundreds of hours and never getting to use them. NOT a healthy situation no matter how you look at it.