ABSTRACT

There are many who would share the view of Nancy Mitford’s Lord Alconleigh concerning all things foreign, as expressed in the heading of this chapter, and this distrust of foreign ways extends to the employment of armed police officers. So deeply entrenched is this attitude that no less a personage than the Parliamentary Adviser to the Police Federation, Michael Shersby, has expressed the view that: In many countries where the police are armed, the criminal use of firearms is much greater. As one might expect, firearms were used in two-thirds of the murders, mostly handguns. One major difference between the USA and the UK (which reflects the more ready availability of handguns in the USA) is the fact that shotguns represented a mere ten per cent of the weapons in the United States, whereas this type of weapon is much more common.