The UK’s Metropolitan Police Federation’s (MPF) is bitching and moaning about the Home Office’s decision not to equip its members with TASERs. Remembering that The Land of Hope and Glory has disarmed its citizens, here’s a taste of the MPF’s justification for their dissatisfaction: “The arguments for ensuring that it has much wider deployment are formidable. Not least among them is the question of public re-assurance . . .

For the ordinary citizen there can be nothing worse than seeing something threatening happening – such as a six-foot, 20 stone man running amok with a machete – which the police are apparently unable to speedily deal with.

And delay is the friend of criminals, who can use the minutes at their disposal to plan their next moves, which may include acquiring another weapon, or a better one.

Even apparently mundane incidents can, of course, suddenly escalate. In domestic arguments, for example, it is not unknown for the emotional temperature to suddenly reach a point where one partner goes for a weapon. Again, the presence of a Taser may dissuade them.

This is what happens when the government assumes a monopoly on violence: they don’t even perceive a need for self-defense. The idea that a citizen—sorry subject would want to defend themselves a machete-wielding madman—or some other lethal threat—doesn’t even occur to them.

Reading between the lines, the MPF’s campaign for TASERs is all about their officers’ safety—not the well-being of those they’re supposed to serve and protect.

Of course, the Taser is not a universal panacea, any more than batons or spray. When a criminal has a gun and is threatening to shoot, the response must be a conventional firearm – the spasm caused by a Taser hit could cause the gunman’s finger to squeeze the trigger.

But the Met Fed is convinced that its wider deployment will enhance officer safety, public safety and even the safety of suspects.

It will also reduce the pressure on those specialist units which have the weapon and who too often have to fight distance, traffic and clock to help their unarmed colleagues.

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20 COMMENTS

  2. evidently these people have never watched videos on youtube of people getting shocked, it is NOT the end all be all defense method. how heavy is “20 stone” anyways?

  4. Just wanted to have a bit of a discussion. Philosophy of defense aside, isn’t the UK a much safer country, with much lower rates of armed violence? And my sense is that the British people have a different culture – they don’t want their police armed with deadly force.

    Since no argument for arming citizens or police happens in a vaccuum, I wanted to see what people thought.

    • While murder rates are lower in the UK, overall violent crime is much higher than all but a few inner city neighborhoods in the US. You are safer walking around in New York City than in London. Home invasions in the UK are the norm not the exception, and rape is frequent companion to the robbery. Most American thugs prefer to steal from you when you aren’t home. They don’t like being shot at anymore than you do.

      • When I lived in GB I never worried about violent crime, but propery crime is ridiculous. Garages and sheds need to be secured like Fort Knox and God forbid you park a motorcycle anywhere without 50 kilos of chains. I lost 3 in 6 months and none of them were what you’d call desirable.

        • I believe that the UK violent crime rate is north of 750 per 100,000 people. I won’t say you were lucky but I have Brit military people tell me I was dumb for walking around London by myself at night.

          • According to uk news websites it took me a grand total of 4 minutes to google, violent crime in the uk is a little more than double the US average. Seeing as gunshots are about 80% survivable (according to the CDC), while attacks with baseball(or cricket) bats are about the reverse of that (20% survivable), add to that the general lack of accuracy of thugs, I think I’d much rather be shot at than attacked with a blunt object.

          • I lived in both Oakland (avg. 1400 per 100k)and Memphis (over 1500 per 100k) before my sojourn, so by comparison…

  5. Speaking of thugs with machetes, did anyone see the recent news about Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s recent encounter with such a thug? This is the judge who wrote the dissent in the Heller vs D.C. – 2nd Amendment case, wherein he held that self-defense is NOT a fundamental human right.

    Seems that Judge Breyer was in his “West Indies vacation home” on the island of Nevis, with his wife and some friends, when a machete-wielding thug broke in and demanded money. The thug was apparently satisfied with the $1000 the judge and his fellow victims were able to produce, because he left without running amok and chopping the wealthy vacationing judge and friends to itty-bitty pieces.

    Can you say “irony”, boys and girls? Justice Breyer, who believes the peasants have no fundamental human right of self-defense, found himself at the mercy of a strong young male with a machete. The ONLY reason he was not hacked up was that the criminal, on a whim, decided not to start hacking. Justice Breyer’s life, and the lives of his wife and friends, was entirely in the possession of an armed criminal. In addition to the $1000, they all lost a very large portion of their human dignity. They were reduced to helpless, worthless victims, and the machete-wielding thug is now convinced that assaults on rich, vacationing foreigners is a very profitable business.

    Wonder if Justice Breyer would reconsider his dissent in Heller vs. D.C.? Naah, he’s a liberal, and is capable of total self-delusion. I am sure he has rationalized the incident as something that will never happen again. And while he is in the US, he may be right, since he receives armed protection from Federal police. Wonder how he feels about his vacation home in the West Indies? Maybe the government of Nevis will allow him to have a Taser?

    • Oh no, he won’t reconsider his position. Hell, it just re-emphasized his delusions. “see, just like I always said, if you cooperate with the robber you won’t get hurt!”.

      It probably never occurred to the morons that, for a few minutes, their entire existence was teetering on the whim of a person who was obviously nuts enough to bust into a house, with several people in it, with a machete.

      We Human beings are experts at lying to ourselves.

  6. The ‘hot’ home burglary rate in GB/England is at about 55% of the time when residents are home. By contrast, the ‘hot’ rate in America is about 10%. In America, burglars fear meeting an armed resident. Violent crime is definitely increasing (post gun grab results) in disarmed dysfunctional modern multicultural GB and especially London. Reports from England are that 25% of street assaults are now done by teenage and early twenties females. A downside to ’empowerment’ and single parent households. I have read that either GB or England’s politicians have passed laws that citizens cannot use any tool as a weapon in their defense (even within their own homes) calling such use ‘uncivilized’.

    • True. And for a criminal in Britain (and now Australia), it makes sense to break into a home when the residents are there. The thugs can torture and terrorize the residents into revealing any hidden valuables, and maybe engage in a little rape if they feel like it. Just like Europe during the Hundred Years War. Now that’s progress!

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