President's Column - The arming issue
“The Norwegians reached their compromise of having every patrol car equipped with firearms in safes beside the driver after considerable debate. This was after just one officer was killed when police were outgunned during a robbery.”
This month’s Police News features a series of articles around the subject of Police access to firearms.
In a year when six of our colleagues have been shot, two fatally, it is not a topic which can be swept aside in a media sound bite or other general communication, especially when half of us now believe police should be generally armed.
The Police Association endeavours to be well informed on all aspects of policing to ensure any statements we make come from a well informed position; one we are confident represents the views of the relevant group of our members. Due to the specialised nature of many parts of our large organisation, it is important that the views of the people most affected by any proposed change be isolated and weighted accordingly.
That’s what makes the views of frontline police, those most vulnerable and in contact with the public, of significance in any decision-making.
As this month’s survey results show, a majority of our frontliners now want to be armed, or have better access to firearms.
We fully accept there are many factors, which need to be taken into account, as they were in the Northern Territory of Australia, the last Australian Force to generally arm, and in the Norwegian Police, the only force on mainland Europe, which remains unarmed. I recently visited Norway to ensure we can put their situation into the right context. We can. In fact the four Scandinavian countries, as national forces policing countries with small populations but large land areas, whose main criminal groups are Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, are much more like our own than a lot of other countries we tend to emulate.
The Norwegians reached their compromise of having every patrol car equipped with firearms in safes beside the driver after considerable debate. This was after just one officer was killed when police were outgunned during a robbery. We need that debate here, not silly responses like “if we arm the crims will arm” or “most cops are shot with their own weapon” both easily refutable statements. Of course, very significant is the fact that the majority of the public is now happy to see their police armed. I don’t necessarily agree with one member’s statement that police funerals are preferable politically to police shootings, but I understand the sentiment and frustration expressed.
Many of the first police on the scene of Len Snee’s shooting in Napier were ‘day workers’, exempted from training in many districts but luckily not in Hawke’s Bay. It just showed the call to arms can come at any time in policing, and now is no time to be squeamish or overly cautious in fully assessing the response capability of Police; a Police, which is being assaulted and shot at more than ever before. It is certainly no time to be reducing the number of officers who will
be trained, as is the current proposal.
Let’s at least have the discussion and see if there may even be a Norwegian-style compromise, which matches the needs of frontline policing with the status quo being advocated by some decision makers.
Otherwise we are left asking the obvious question; how many of us will it take to be shot and shot at before we are prepared to review our arming policies?
