Cumbria - Why Police Should Be Armed

Eloquently written post from police blogger Inspector Gadget.

I bet you are glad that we are armed with an aluminium expandable stick, a few grams of pepper and some handcuffs.
Oh, and a stab vest just in case. How can we protect the public, or even ourselves, with equipment like this?
It really does come to something when you realise that even if you call the police to deal with this kind of thing, we can't help you until a specialist unit arrives from the other side of the county, and then they are constrained by so much pre-planning and procedure that they really can't intervene in any kind of real time anyway.
In European countries, the very first police who arrive at the scene can engage the gunman immediately
I support the routine arming of all UK mainland police officers at all times.

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