Officer Carol Howard (courtesy standard.co.uk)

U.S. gun control advocates support the Second Amendment, but – they’d like to see all Americans disarmed. America would then becomes as “immune” to gun violence as the U.K. We’ve debunked that apples-to-oranges idea many times. Suffice it to say, the antis cite the “fact” that “British police don’t carry guns” as part of their anti-American anti-gun agitprop. Well guess what? They do. Carol Howard [above] is a firearms officer of the Metropolitan Police’s Diplomatic Protection Group. Armed Brit cops also patrol The City, airports and other sensitive locations. As for the riff-raff, armed response units are just minutes away (when seconds count). So is this image of a tooled-up Brit cop incendiary to the antis? Maybe not. And that’s scary.

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114 COMMENTS

    • Back when I had an FFL, I purchased a couple of dozen S&W model 10s that were London Police surplus. Carried a good bit and shot little. Very nice revolvers. I believe I averaged about a hundred each. They had British proof marks and what appeared to be an armourer’s number stamped on the frame.

    • I fully agree, if they want to apply rules to the public the police should follow suit. They want us to have “smart guns” the military and the police should be carrying them to.

  3. There is a theme that I have noticed in my interactions with British immigrants. The women are tougher than the men. There, I said it.

    • I read somewhere that some British officer back at the turn of the century(early 1900s) made a comment about what a shame it was they were decreasing the power of the .455 webley cartridge because it was to uncontrollable for most troops to handle. He questioned where all the men had gone in the British empire.

      • ruester, Millions of their best young men dead in their colonial wars, WW I and WW II might have some impact on that toughness point.

        • yep. This is even more pronounced among the french who lost generations of young men in the two world wars. They went from the most powerful and well-respected land army in the world to… well, you know… in only a few decades.

  4. She needs a bit more gear to compete with her American comrades. May I suggest tacticool gloves, face mask, helmet, visor, knee-elbow-shin protection and some Dog-B-Gone (for when an overdose of 9mm proves ineffective). And an MRAP.

  5. If the fact that British cops don’t carry guns is supposed to be evidence that gun control has worked in the U.K., then how come very few (if any) gun control advocates here in the U.S. advocate disarming cops? Also, I’ve never heard Piers Morgan point this fact out.

    • It’s not supposed to be. Just the opposite, if anything. British cops were unarmed because they were expected to call on ordinary citizens around them who _would_ be armed, if a situation arose that required guns. That hasn’t been an option for some time, of course, but when the modern police force was invented by Sir Robert Peele in the 18th century, the British people were very well armed. The whole anti-gun thing in the UK didn’t start until around WWI, when the ruling class became afraid of a Communist revolution and wanted to disarm the riffraff. Over time that expanded to everybody, just as gun control in the US expanded from Black people to everybody.

      • That’s exactly right. And the trench warfare of WWI fostered a peacenik movement. Until last year there was an old women still alive who lead the movement. Unfortunately I heard she was stabbed and bludgeoned to death by some YOB on her local High Street.

    • The US has a higher murder rate than the UK because Detroit, Chicago, Baltimurder, Memphis and Philadelphia are in the US.

    • Thanks for the link. I’m going to point people to that article whenever I get a chance. I don’t think this guy got to the real reason behind the difference in homcide rates (it’s probably not possible anyway), but on the gun control part he’s got it nailed.

      “Gun control advocates of the British variety don’t like to point out that gun control in the U.K. did not reduce the number of murders.” That and the homicide rate graph say it all.

    • Don’t think of it as a pistol-caliber carbine. Think of it as a select-fire handgun with a stock and a 30-round mag. Now who could pass up one of those!

      • Many UK Police departments are buying G36, H&K416s, sig and Styer rifles. And the MOD Police have H&K MP7s.

  10. Yep…last time I was in Heathrow, 2 heavily armed and armored brits with HK MP5’s at the entrance to the Airlingus concourse.

    • Last time I was at Heathrow, the Policeman all had an escort of a Paratrooper with a SA80 held at the ready.

  11. Hey, she has a cell phone. That way they can talk to you as you are being carved up by jolly proper knife wielding perps. Those Europeans, they sure are sophisticated.

    • It’s actually a police radio. They use a service/band over there called TETRA. TErrestrial Trunked RAdio.
      It’s a digital system and the handsets are similar to old-style cell phones. In some cases they actually can be automatically patched into the civilian cell network, so the handset can double as a cell phone. It’s kind of a mishmash of a police radio, Nextel, and old-style (voice/text/low speed data) cell phone. Nokia was/is a huge supplier of devices.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TETRA

  15. Anyone else wonder why bother with a pistol-caliber SMG that is the size of a rifle-caliber carbine? That thing is huge. Or maybe she’s just exceedingly miniature.

    • That’s an MP5, amirite? Not that I’ve held one, but if she’s my size then the thing has gotta weigh like ~30lbs and be 36inches long. I’ll use the EOTech for scale instead, and I’m guessing that she’s kinda tiny.

      But apparently she didn’t have a problem with the guns used for firearms qualification being “too big”.

  16. A checkered hat band? + a Glock? What about a white (reflective) hat band and a classy BHP or CZ.

    You might as well shoot me, since that would be easier to digest than their sense of fashion. Not meant to be an attack, but I just got my thoughts about British classiness shattered (and I have some form if fashion sense, sadly).

  19. The true indicator that the UK isn’t a gun-free paradise isn’t that the cops carry guns….

    … it’s that even when they don’t carry guns, they still always wear their body armor.

  20. I thought she looked Steam Punk. She just needs a bit ‘O lace and a few brass accents to finish the ensemble.

  26. YES…too bad Lee Pace didn’t have a gun to stop 2 “terrorists” from BEHEADING HIM. Yeah I know he was soldier & not a cop. NO DEATH PENALTY IN GB.

  30. “Sensitive Areas” = where the aristocracy and elite live and work. When I was there in 2011, two weeks after the riots that left many middle class neighborhoods in ruins, the bobbies were working three man fire teams, but only around Buckingham Palace and White Hall. By contrast, the French had Three man fire teams (of military) patrolling the train stations. Hmmm, wonder why I felt safer in Paris?

  31. Psst! I know you guys know everything, but here goes:

    1. Most Brit cops wear anti-stab body armour NOT anti-ballistic. The two are not the same.

    2. Reliance on stupid 9mm machine pistols (which we all know are weaker than a babies grip), is primairily because Brit authorities don’t want cops going full rock and roll with high powered military weapons in urban environments.

    I for one think it’s refreshing that at least one country is trying to keep a distinction (albeit small) between the military and law enforcement… Unlike other countries I could name.

  33. The problem with the UK police force is they have police that are armed and those who aren’t. In America, ALL cops are armed. Every cop is a “Firearms officer”

  35. I lived in London for a while. On more than one occasion I watched unarmed patrol cops disappear for a couple minutes and reappear in full tactical with MP5s almost without notice when there was an alert of some type. Always blew my mind how quick they would do it.

    • Transbobbies.

      Cops in disguise!

      PS: In the UK they call police for “bobby” or “bobbies”, which does sound similar to “boobies” I will admit.

    • It is true that an EOTech appears clunky compared to a T1 Micro or Aimpoint Hunter. The advantage of the EOTech is, of course, that it provides a bigger eye-box, greater accuracy at speed when the shooter (not just the target) is moving, increased probability that you will get a reticle image when used in wet snow or rain, and better visual projection of the reticle onto the target plain.

      Clunky-looking really doesn’t matter once the shooting starts. Ask Osama.

  37. Nice hand tattoo…..is that a Brit Gangbanger or a Brit Cop?

    Is there a difference?

  38. Sigh. We have unarmed Policepersons as well in New Zealand. They are rarely seen outside of their patrol cars, which focus mainly on imposing swingeing traffic fines. I get to see them at the supermarket, which is across the road from the Police station. There are some very stunning female officers.

    In years past there were foot patrols, which focused on preventing street crime. Today the gangs own the streets. Muggers and purse snatchers are rife.

    Police can access Glocks or Bushmaster .223s, or even Remington .308 sniper rifles. They are seldom used unless an active crime scene is in play, or if they are hunting someone holding a slug pistol (or plastic toy replica).

    The high number of false prosecutions which are overturned after many years of imprisonment, has reduced the respect held for Police. They no longer earn public esteem through pedestrian patrols. Cost cutting has hit here as well.

    • I should add that whenever Police are seen in numbers, it is invariably to deal with the huge number of drunken and out of control youths late at night. This is a product of our politicians being bought and sold via electoral bribes by the powerful liquor industry, which results in our hospitals being overwhelmed and our annual budgets being raped by the liquor barons. Existing laws are ineffective in dealing with this problem.

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