Regulators in action

[Ian Batten]

On 22 Feb 2008, at 17:42, David Hansen wrote:

> The murderers concerned were hyped up before the murder. This hyping  
> up
> included giving them "special ammunition" they had never used before,

I was surprised by that (and where is Owen when we need him)?  I would  
have expected Police weapons in 9x19 (both the Glock pistols and the  
HK MP5 carbines) to always be loaded with some form of hollow point or  
jacketed hollow point for operational use. The Geneva Convention isn't  
at issue, if you shoot people you do it to stop them dead, and the  
safety of people behind the target is a major issue.  HP ammunition is  
more lethal, doesn't over-penetrate and is less likely to carry large  
amounts of energy when it ricochets.

To my mind either the police carry guns, in which case they need to be  
the most capable and appropriate guns available, or they don't carry  
guns.  To carry or not carry is a political question.  But once you've  
taken that decision, what they carry is a technical question.   Trying  
to have it both ways --- well, we'll let them carry guns, because  
saying otherwise makes us look Soft On Crime, but if we limit them to  
rubbish guns we can pretend they're all going to shoot to disable ---  
is disingenuous, to be charitable.

Once a policeman has drawn a weapon and pulled the trigger, then  
there's a strong risk that someone will get killed, and that's true  
whether the gun is chambered in .454 Casull and suitable for big game  
hunting or the .22LR pistol you used in the CCF when you were  
twelve.    Your safety measures are around having the right people  
with the guns (or no-one with the guns),  and then making sure they  
take the guns out at the right time (or never), point them at the  
right people (or no-one) and pull the trigger at the right time (or  
never).   But once they have pulled the trigger, the ideal gun should  
immediately disable (which means kill) the person it's intended to  
disable, and have no effect on anyone else.   You can't make a pistol  
`safe' when it's used by the wrong people to shoot the wrong person:  
had the Stockwell policemen been carrying air pistols their victim  
would have ended up just as dead.  But you can attempt to improve the  
chances of the people it's not pointed at.

The idea that there's some sort of disabling shot possible with a  
pistol is a fantasy of John Wayne movies.   Pistols aren't that  
accurate even in the hands of the experts.   Your safety margin is in  
not letting them shoot, not in hoping the shot won't be lethal.   The  
police should carry weapons that kill immediately, without placing  
other people at risk, and then we should train them and command them  
and indoctrinate them so that the wrong people don't get shot.   Or we  
should take guns out of the hands of the police, and accept the  
consequences of having to use the military slightly more often than we  
currently do (which would, on balance, be my choice).

In the 1970s, policemen of many shapes and sizes could hold gun  
permits, and archaic .38SPL revolvers were issued to people who  
probably only shot a few dozen rounds a year under incredibly  
permissive command and control.  After debacles like the Steven  
Waldorf case (*) guns were limited to a smaller, better trained cadre  
of officers.  Perhaps that process has gone too far, and we've ended  
up with testosterone fuelled half-experts who aren't connected to the  
police at large, or perhaps it hasn't gone far enough and we should  
aim to create something like SWAT teams.  It's a difficult balance,  
and I'm glad it's not mine to make.

ian

(*) which slightly undermines my argument, because it was the  
inability of low-powered .38SPL training rounds to penetrate the  
windscreen of a Mini that saved his life.  Darn those facts.