Should We Arm More Police? Serving Officer Has "Mixed Mind"

24 June 2017, 18:13 | Updated: 24 June 2017, 18:16

A serving Met Officer has told LBC he has a "mixed mind' over giving more police officers guns.

Christopher, who is not an armed officer, told Ian "there’s only a handful of officers I know that want to be routinely armed."

"If you start arming the police - how many times are we going to be criticised for pulling the trigger and how many time are we going to be criticised for not pulling the trigger?"

"The first time I heard about this National police chiefs council discussion about arming all of us was in an email this morning at work," he said.

"Even now I’m in mixed minds with it because there are a lot of officers that would be good at carrying a firearm and at the same time a lot of officers that necessarily wouldn’t.

"They are brilliant officers but put a gun in their hand and then this leaves scope for things to go wrong."

Should all our police officers have guns? Most of our callers today said "No" although a number thought tazers should be issued.

Police chiefs are to consider the issue in the wake of the London and Manchester terror attacks.

A discussion paper has been prepared for July.

Ian, who has been a serving police officer for 13 years, also called Ian Payne and said: "Under no circumstances do I want to carry a gun."