Society needs the police to help it

Killing people considered armed and dangerous in self-defense is one of the greatest services the officers of law enforcement can offer society. They help the afflicted gunmen in ways no incarceration can. Twenty years in the "slammer", is not a suitable method of dealing with them. To put them down makes so much more sense in the following ways.

1) It prevents (further) loss of innocent life.

2) It allows the police to devote more of their time to deal with people who do not resort to murder or using a lethal weapon to escape justice.

3) It acts as a warning to others of what happens if others take up arms when the police become involved.

I intend to share my approval with all the law enforcement agencies in the US, the UK, Spain and France. They deserve it and I will defend the act of killing people who take up arms against the police during any arrest or seizure operations.

Legal execution is the price for civilized culture and I wholeheartedly endorse it. If I have not apologized for speaking out against the police, I do so now, without any reservations. They are worth their weight in gold and certainly much more than some people give them credit for. Let the bodies of the suspects with guns continue to be "bagged and tagged," as they say.

If only it were that simple.

So you would put the determination of "considered armed and dangerous" into the hands of the police.

A kid running away from you holding a knife?
A man reaching between back into his vehicle for identification which the cops asked for?

Even if there are honest mistakes made, you can't give cops carte blanche on killing people "because they feel threatened"

Determining/defining this is one of the many problems with your idea.

Is that what Jesus said when they brought him a prostitute with a possible gun?

Whoaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh.... hold on a minute, matey.

Your arrogance is staggering. Who do you think you are..? You don't speak for the British people. It's not your place to tell us how to run our law enforcement system.

A trigger-happy nutjob in a country that has 600 times the number of gun related killings despite having only 6 times the population is NOT in a position to tell us what to do.

We're quite capable of looking after ourselves and don't need your input.

I've just noticed a typo that I've made in the above post.

a country that has 600 times the number of gun related killings despite having only 6 times the population

600 should read 160.

My mistake. Corrected now. Humble apologies.

Spain has 360 million people?

you seem to missing one thing...the last 4 mass killings in the UK were with a truck or a van....so do you shoot everyone in a car??? or outlaw all knives..then kill all those that use one??

most of the problem putting these gunmen or terrorists in prison isn't the police.

justice and the law is both of them are to protect the innocents as well as the guilty. justice is blind. the law is equal. the law, in truth not equal, not always fair. but is the law.

revenge is sweet on a cold plate, you and police get just kill a person for revenge. where would be the justice for the society. revenge is simply cold blood murder, and there is no way to look at other way. it is always wrong.

either death or prison is true justice for anyone - a crime that unthinkable to the community.

justice has be service by your peers, no should be to play god to someone without be equal as guilty as they were, or innocent, as you claim, you are.

the law is balance, when man is not.

I agree with a few points made by a few people here.

As for the OP....well..I agree with the title of the thread. The police are needed in western society. They are necessary. I agree that those who take up arms against the police deserve lethal force if there is no other alternative, sure.

I also agree that giving a police officer full power to determine what exactly "armed and dangerous" means is careless and negligent, but I also don't see that being mentioned in the OP so I don't know if that's the idea being pushed by it.

Luckily, that is absolutely not what we do with our police force and never has been. We have a judicial branch to keep the executive branch in check.

In the seventeen years I closely worked with the police in places all over the country, I can count on one hand the number of times officers I worked with fired their weapons, and I can count twice that an officer killed someone in the line of duty. Once, because an officer had come across a drug deal and the dealer was trying to run him over with his car, and the other because someone was perched inside an attic window and had shot and killed someone (who was a Maplewood Missouri firefighter putting out a fire) and shot and injured two officers who had responded as a result. That fire fighter's name was Ryan Hummert and he was doing nothing wrong when he was murdered.

I think in those cases, killing the person was justified, but that justification was not totally up to the officer involved. Full investigations were opened in both cases which took several man hours and individuals to resolve.

The fact that I can count two lethal encounters by the police I've worked with in my seventeen year career that spans the country and that both of them were (in my opinion) justified should say something about the rarity of them at large.

The police killing people is not the norm. A vast majority of the officers I've personally known (and I have known thousands) have never discharged their weapons except at a firing range.

Those who have killed someone in the line of duty would probably not agree with the glorification of their actions. Most of the time it leads to regret and sadness because...well...they're people too. Cops are human beings and they are normally deeply affected when someone dies on their watch because most of them get into the profession in order to protect people, not kill them. I have helped a lot of friends who were "on the job" deal with some pretty ugly depression that resulted from the things they have seen and had to deal with and things they have had to do. I myself have suffered for those reasons and it takes its toll. I can remember the name of every child I've lost on my watch. Cops are no different, and yes, there are some a*****es with badges who don't feel that way, but they are the exception not the rule.

It's also of note to mention that "shoot to kill" is not an officer's goal when he or she fires a weapon. It's to neutralize.

Check his spelling.

Only one country in the world has adopted the Oxford system in general parlance. Guess where....

All over Europe, it is the Cambridge standard of written English that is taught.

Conflict's use of z instead of s is a dead giveaway.


If this Conflict individual is Spanish I would be very, very surprised at his command of Americanised English.


But in any case, regardless of current location, we still don't want that kind of support.

The public here doesn't want a fully armed police service, Parliament doesn't want it and the police don't want it either. Indeed, when polled by the Police Federation on several occasions, rank and file officers have responded overwhelmingly against.

Keep your guns.

Very good point. In fact, very few terrorist incidents in UK have involved firearms. The IRA used firearms in Ireland but very seldom on mainland UK. The 7 July 2005 attack involved bombs, the 2013 attack on off duty soldier Lee Rigby was carried out by vehicle attack followed by machete. As you rightly point out, the recent assaults were also low-tech, non-firearm related.

Use of police firearms did not prevent any attacks, they merely ensured that the offenders never faced a trial or conviction for their offences. All that shooting ensures is that the attacker gets his wish to become a martyr and thus ensures that a disproportionately high number of others will be so angered that they join the cause.

Police with guns: Terrorism's recruiting sergeant.

His IP shows him posting from Spain.

Beyond that, why do you seem to be so suddenly intent on telling someone he's not allowed to say something about his own opinion? I thought you were against that sort of thing.

He's not trying to speak for you, he's speaking for himself and what he believes. Whether or not one agrees with him, he should be allowed to do so. Yes, even he was an American. You railed against him in your first post for telling you what to do...but he never did that. He voiced his opinion. Nothing more.

Doesn't this look familiar?



But your response to him was "we don't need your input?"

Are only the British or those you agree with allowed their views then?

Just so we're clear, I think his view (if taken with what seem to be the unsaid implications) is a dangerous one and I don't agree with the spirit of it, but I'm also not okay telling him to shut up about it.

You misunderstand me. I am not telling anyone how to do anything. I'm paying law enforcement a tribute. How they conduct their business is up to them, not me. I would never even dream of forgetting my place as a regular citizen.

I think appreciation for a life saving practice that has earned its merit would be a better term than arrogance.

Also, I would have thought that being a mother would give you more cause to be thankful for police officers killing armed suspects who give them reason to use lethal force. Don't you feel better about criminals getting put down, knowing that the goal of which is to preserve the lives of innocent people?



Thank you for your input, Eaglebauer. To begin with, yes, I am Spanish. To go on, I tend to write in americanized English because of all the works of American literature that I have read and continue to read.

As to how 'considered armed and dangerous' is perceived, I would say we've got to make it clear when lethal force is necessary, but remember, police officers are still human beings and human beings tend to act on their feelings, given the right opportunities or provocation. I think that's what we need to work on.

One thing, Jennifer, this bothers me... 'Police with guns: Terrorism's recruiting sergeant.' This is a very big claim to make and a most disagreeable one. What are you basing it on?

I'm sorry, but I'll call bulls*** on this one Jennifer. Just admit you overlooked where he is actually from in your constant anti-American zeal.

I don't have any guns to keep, by the way, and most Americans don't. Furthermore, I probably would agree with you in that guns do not solve problems as effectively as other means. However, using this opportunity (that wasn't there to begin with) for you to attack us is tiresome, to say the least, and, as you very well know, aggravating, for many.