Thread: Why frontline cops should be armed

Originally Posted by Savage1

The WINZ incident was committed by a lone person with mental health issues, it's a one off or extremely rare, not a daily occurrence. Who got called in to deal with that guy? Police.

Because I don't know is exactly why I'm neutral, there is no contradiction in that statement.

You stated "if you look at the safety statistics", now you're saying you don't know the statistics, that gives me great confidence in what you post.

I wasn't forgetting anything, I never heard of the CHCH incident, are you saying there has never been an accidental discharge on a civilian range? I talk to a lot of cops and don't hear of many injuries and incidents.

Of course the police got called in to deal with him. Nobody else in the country is allowed to carry an effective means of defense and if they used it then it's likely that they would end up on the wrong side of a court case even though their intentions were to defend life and property. Basically what you are advocating is disarming the public and then arming the police more in order to protect a disarmed public.

I may have used the wrong word when I said satistics. My info came directly from the blokes on the RO course and it wasn't second hand. I don't think they release public stats on police range accidents but if they do let me know where they are. To the best of my knowladge there has been one firearm related injury at a civilian range.

Here is an article detailing the eight accidential dischanges by police between 2010 and 2013, it doesn't make for great reading.
Police shooting still unresolved a year on | Stuff.co.nz

He was being helped to his feet when a police officer's Bushmaster rifle discharged. Pere spent several weeks in Wellington Hospital recovering.

The officer involved has since returned to work on restricted duties, and was stood down from the armed offenders squad.

That doesn't contain the Chch one so I will see if I can find that.