England's streets too dangerous for cops.

The BBC has an interesting report which questions how dangerous the streets of England have become for police officers. The report says:

Research carried out by the Police Federation for England and Wales last year found 40,000 officers had been faced with a knife and 7,000 threatened with a gun during the past two years. Paul Tonks, chairman of the West Midlands Police Federation, said that during his 28 years' service there had always been colleagues injured, but the job had become more dangerous recently. Police constable Norman Brennan says: “Britain is very violent and the increasing violence against police mirrors that faced by other people in society.”

This rise in violent crime in the UK has caused an increase in the debate over arming police with many police saying the streets are too dangerous and they are unarmed while criminals are not. What needs to be remembered is that firearms are nearly completely illegal in the UK. But as we’ve reported here before since hard core gun control went into effect crime has escalated dramatically and the number of weapons in the hands of criminals went up, not down.

Now we have police officers lobbying for the right to be armed because of this sort of criminal violence. But as Pc Brennan stated what is happening to the police “mirrors that faced by other people in society.” So the question the advocates of arming the British police have to ask themselves is whether or not the other innocent people in the UK shouldn’t be able to protect themselves as well.