Should the police be armed and capital punishment re-introduced for certain crimes?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail....d-officers-armed.html

In the wake of the recent shootings of the two policewomen is it now time that our police were armed?

And then why stop at that, should capital punishment also be re-introduced for the killing of police officers, children and terrorism?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.guardian.c...jun/12/shouldallpoli1

/// It quotes Michael Winner, founder of the Police Memorial Trust, who repeated his demands for officers to be armed, saying that that the UK was an "increasingly lunatic society that is armed more than ever". ///

/// He said of 33 memorials created by the trust for dead officers, around 28 officers "would be alive if they had been armed ///

That very fact surely makes it worthwhile to consider arming the police, at least?

[Just-Jude]

Their killer is a psychopath, armed or not, they stood no chance.

So it's a no and no!

[Zeuhl]

missprim

<Brady and Hindly killed those children is for a completely different reason>

so you don't agree Brady thought the children didn't deserve to live?

Interesting

and you don't agree Brady thought it would suit him to get rid of them?

Why do you think that?

[Old_Geezer]

a) I suspect it is making firearms look normal that encourages such incidents. One should not be feeling the need to have armed personnel patrolling the streets controlling decent citizens, but concentrate instead on using intelligence and raids to stamp out the recent tendency for the criminals to be armed, instead. Arming the general copper on the street would be yet another nail in the coffin of this country's image of being civilised.

b) Capital punishment is only justifiable if a country is so poor it can not afford to act in a civilised manner and incarcerate those unfit for society, and so has to resort to the barbarism of the past. It is not a question worth a response in western society; and yet if one ignores it someone will ask it again anyway as if morality has changed in the meanwhile. Society should set a good example, not drop to the level of the worse of society's offenders as if that makes things ok. It's not as if it even has a beneficial affect as the number of crime free countries still perpetrating a death penalty can testify to.

[joeluke]

Yes and yes

zeuhl......'Why would we kill people like The Moors Murderers?

Is it because in our opinion they don't deserve to live and it suits us to get rid of them?'


Er, yes again

Taking someones life (and also shattering the lives of the family of that person) is the ultimate sin and the murderer does not deserve to carry on existing, he/she has forfeited that right by their heineous crime. Two wrongs do not necessarily make a right but in this instance the world would be a far better place rid of this scum

[missprim]

He didn't kill those children because they had committed a murder.
The mind of some of these murderers is completely different and I suspect many of them kill for pleasure.
We would not kill for pleasure (although I'm sure the parents of those children would) we would execute them because they really don't deserve to live and I'm sure that more people would agree with me than Brady.

[shoota]

I was a Police Officer, a divisional firearms officer and I shot for both the Met and the National Police Pistol teams.

Even though I was very familar with firearms I didn't want to carry one routinely (I did for a while on a forerunner of the armed response units) until I became a father for the first time and then I changed my mind because I wished to be in a position to be able to defend myself against the unexpected attack - it is those incidents that carry the risk.On a pre-planned op you can cater for any attack.
In a case like this where you have an unexpected attack would the second officer have been able to shoot the suspect when he started shooting and prevent her own death?
Should Police Officers have that opportunity? I now believe that yes they should be allowed to carry if they so wish.
As to the death penalty - I'm undecided.

[jno]

no, cops generally don't want to be armed - it makes them more likely to be shot at.

No. Countries with capital punishment stuill have as many murders as here, or more. The US rate is more than three times the UK rate - see here

http://en.wikipedia.o...icide_rate#By_country

[Zeuhl]

Joe and missprim

You keep reinforcing my point.

Our disapproval of murderers like Brady is that they took another's life. So:

they thought they had the right to do so in the circumstances
they thought their victim didn't deserve to live
it was convenient/safer/satisfying to do so

Those are precisely the reasons you are giving for capital punishment.

In my view, one either thinks it's ok to take another life or one doesn't

I know which category I'm in
I know which category Brady, Hindley and the Wests are in.

Which category are you in?

[andy-hughes]

joeluke - you are prefctly correct to lament the pain and aguish caused to the families of murder victims - yet you would be willing to accept the same for the victims of murders executed.

Your logic that murders 'do not deserve to carry on existing' is flawed - but what of their family members? How do you justify them carrying the anguish of the loss of their loved one through no fault of theirs?

We are talking life and death here - it is never as cut and dried as the pro-Capital Punishment brigade would like to believe.

[Brinjal]

No and no.

[joeluke]

Zeuhl.....difference is the murderer took an innocent persons life - hanging a murderer is not taking an innocent persons life, and it also prevents that scum ever having an opportunity to murder again

Andy Hughes......couldn't give a t0ss for the feelings of a murderers family, they have the misfortune to be related to a murderer and they should put aside their feelings towards their murdering scum relation and think of the innocent life that has been taken. If a family member of mine committed a murder then I would also be of the opinion that they deserved to hang

[anotheoldgit]

jno

/// no, cops generally don't want to be armed - it makes them more likely to be shot at. ///

Are you so naive to believe that the armed criminal when cornered, would not shoot at a policeman just because that wouldn't be fair, because he isn't armed?

[Davethedog]

A point about Brady, if you research him, you will see that what he did, he did, for sadistic pleasure and control. He killed the children because they would be witness to what he did to them.

He is a sociopath, there many reasons why people murder and they cannot all be tarred with the same brush as despicable as he is and no one would cast a tear at his death, he cannot be "brackated" with yesterday.

[albaqwerty]

no and no.

[anotheoldgit]

In the resent killing of the two police women, the killer fired off a number of shots before hitting his targets, don't you think that if the two policewomen had been armed they might have got a round-a-two off, which might have saved their lives?

[AB Editor]

Just been reading this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19641398

A good case for unarmed policing?

[Zeuhl]

joe

with respect, that seems like a very 'loose' argument

<hanging a murderer is not taking an innocent persons life>

so you're saying it's ok to kill someone if we decide they are not 'innocent'. So if someone kills a fellow gangster - that's ok?

<it also prevents that scum ever having an opportunity to murder again>

so does being incarcerated. They could kill a fellow prisoner i suppose, but according to your other argument that would be ok as they are not 'innocent'

[ichkeria]

The death penalty will never be re-introduced into the UK, for all sorts of reasons, not least the fact that the putting to death of a criminal is, in a civilised society, a traumatic and drawn out affair with all sorts of baggage attached to it. It's all very well to wheel out the cases of the most notorious killers like Ian Brady, but there's a lot more to it than that.

Also, membership of the Council of Europe forbids it :-)

[Zeuhl]

<the killer fired off a number of shots before hitting his targets>

He might have been a little more careful with his first shots if he'd known he was dealing with armed (but sidearms holstered) officers.

Statistically, (and in practical terms) being armed in that way is a poor defence against a surprise attack.