In the latest crime figures released for the year ending March 2019 the office for national statistics recorded “an 8% increase in the number of police-recorded offences involving knives or sharp instruments”.A violent crime epidemic is taking place across the United Kingdom. Seemingly every morning the news bulletins contain a police officer injured or even murdered in the line of duty.
The real question that occurs here is how to deal appropriately with this issue. Some have called for all police officers to be armed with guns. However, one proposal outlined by Nick Ferrari is the prospect of giving police officers tasers. LBC has this morning released a poll stating that 73% of the public “think that all police officers in the UK should be armed with tasers”.Mr Ferrari is working with the police federation on the ‘time for taser campaign’.
Police foot patrol
Those who have argued against police officers carrying weapons in the past often point to the fact that police officers would not want it forced upon them. However, this LBC poll claims that less than 8% of police federation members surveyed stated that they would prefer not to carry the knife.
Mr Ferrari is well known for his strong opinions on crime, and once said on LBC that terrorist sympathisers should be tagged “You have to tag them. I mean it. If it takes 3,000 tags then buy 3,000 bloody tags. Instead of spending £56 billion on the pitiful HS2, why don’t we use some of that money to actually protect our children so we don’t have to see blood literally on the walls of an arena where kiddies have gone to a pop concert?”.
One of the campaigns stated aims is to secure a ringfenced budget from the government to equip all current serving police officers with taser guns. Bill Bratton, who is the former chief of the New York Police Department, in a city notorious for violent crime has also offered his thoughts on the campaign.
West Midland Police Officer
Mr Bratton stated “I would see tasers as extraordinarily beneficial for morale for your officers, to show you care about them and their safety. “One of the things that can be effective against knife-type crime rather than guns is a taser. If you take it back to the New York experience, my transit cops there was a boost in morale, that we cared for them, that we were giving them weaponry to deal with what they were up against”.Given that current PM Boris Johnson has seemingly turned the spending valves on as well as the crime epidemic in the UK, the ‘time for taser’ campaign may have picked the perfect time.
Current Affairs Correspondent | My name is Oliver Down I am 22, and a staunch brexiteer. I am a Bristolian lad who studied politics in Leicester. I believe in free speech and accurate journalism and I won’t be afraid to give you “the other side” of the story!
