Ryan Bridge: I trust police to make the call around regular arming

Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

Almost 70% of cops want to be armed, and I say who the hell are we to get in their way?

The new Commissioner has come in, and he's been more gung ho on this idea of regular arming of our police force than any of his predecessors.

The fact is they're on the front line, aren't they?

Last year, there was a 9% increase in tactical operations interactions – that means basically the bad ones. That's up to more than 7000. The number of cops physically attacked doubled from 2022 to 2023.

It's dangerous.

We're not the ones going out on the streets, are we?

We're tucked up in bed with moral superiority saying, no, we don't like the idea of you guys being armed. I prefer you pull the gang member over, please. Take your chances.

It's a little bit sanctimonious from us, don't you think?

If they feel it would make their situation safer, then I trust them to make that call.

Of course, you'll always have mistakes, and chaos prior to the shooting clearly shouldn't have happened, and they say they're working further at training etcetera to make that all better.

But we can't sit here tucked up on our beds at night, all judgey, when we're not the ones out there in the dead of the night facing more violence, guns, and crime.

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