Gabriel Gonzalez

November 24, 2014

ENC 1101/Professor Massey
Community Problem Report: The Ability for Police Officers to Protect and Serve in
this Day in Age
There have been many instances and speculations over if the police should be armed or
not. Over the last decade the amounts of instances where the suspect has a weapon (usually a
gun) on or near them. Officers are now having to be extra careful when pulling someone over
because of this problem. Officers are also being outgunned due to an epidemically growing black
market for guns especially semi-automatic and automatic weapons. These weapons that are sold
in the black market are usually banned guns like the AK-47. These guns are also usually sold to
criminals or gangs with bad intentions.
Due to the growing concerns that police officers are having on their own protection and
health because of these ongoing issues they have vowed for better weapons. According to
Charlie Gillis in his article Dying Shame, The Colt C8 carbine, a semi-automatic assault rifle
that has become industry standard in Canadian policing but has been painfully slow coming to
the RCMP.(16-18). The article shows how the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) is
struggling to adequately protect their officers by getting them the necessary equipment to protect
themselves and the citizens. They have been asking for the Colt C8 carbine assault rifle which
has been distributed to police forces all over Canada. However, despite being one of, if not the
best, Canadas best police forces it took, 18 months before Paulson took the helm of the service:
by then fully 53 police forces across Canada had equipped at least some of their patrol officers

with carbines.(Gillis Dying Shame 16-18) This further proves that 18 months before Paulson,
the Commissioner of the RCMP, considered listening to his officers 53 other Canadian police
forces had started to arm their patrol units with these carbines. This exemplifies the need for
police officers in Canada to be armed with semi-automatic or automatic weapons.
Furthermore, some of the things they are also asking for besides weapons is bullet proof
vests. According to Dying Shame Gillis asks police officers of the RCMP about the ongoing
problem and some have answered that, While the force has mandated that every patrol car be
stocked with hard-plate body armor, they note, patrol constables in B.C. have been turning up at
stores like DS Tactical in New Westminster, B.C., to buy their own, out of pocket. A single plate
capable of stopping a rifle bullet can cost up to $500 per plate: so called soft armor, which can
stop pistol shots, costs about as much.(16-18). This shows that officers in the RCMP have
become so frustrated because they need that equipment that they are going to buy it with their
own money. Also, according to Dying Shame the reason this has been brought to the publics
attention is because of all the shootings in Canada recently: the 1989 Montreal massacre, the
2001 murder of Const. Dennis Strongquill in Manitoba, the 2006 shooting of two Mounties near
Spiritwood, the three weeks of shootings and unrest in Canada in July of 2014 while this article
was being written, and more (Gillis 16-18). The reoccurring shootings are becoming more and
more common and that is a gigantic issue. This is especially because some of their own, other
RCMP officers, have been shot and killed as a result of being out gunned.
In addition to, a pole that was done with the RCMP officers showed a staggering
response on the issue. In Dying Shame, Charlie Gillis shows that, 77.6 per cent of RCMP
respondents he polled believed patrol carbines should be issued to all uniformed officers; 91 per
cent said it should take the place of the shotgun in police cars. (16-18) This shows that the

overwhelming majority of patrol officers at the RCMP consider it beneficial to their health and
the health of the citizens they swore to Protect and Serve to get the Colt C8 carbine assault
rifles to deal with the growing problem with automatic and semi-automatic guns available to
criminals. The RCMP also paid about $92,000 to Darryl Davies, a lecturer at Carleton
Universitys criminology department, to see if it was beneficial to supply officers with Colt C8
semi-automatic assault rifles. His findings showed that it would in fact be extremely helpful
because of the problem the RCMP officers have been facing. That problem once again is being
out gunned by criminals in shoot outs which should never happen in the first place. That should
never happen because if the police who have training in shooting and are paid to maintain order
are being out gunned and cant stop the criminal nobody can.
Another example of this problem is the Arizona shooting that occurred in 2011. The
article The Arizona Shootings: Pistol Built a Reputation on its Style, Ease of Use by Gary
Fields shows that the Glock, a legal semi-automatic pistol, has become so popular between both
citizens and the police. Fields says in The Arizona Shootings: Pistol Built a Reputation on its
Style, Ease of Use, The Glock can even take its place among classic popular-culture gun
styles along with the Uzi, AK 47, Thompson submachine gun and Colt 45, said Robert
Thompson, a professor at Syracuse University.(1). He claims that the reason the Glock has
become so well-known is because of the Glocks rapid fire rate (ability to shoot multiple bullets
at a fast rate) and compactness (relatively small and able to shoot 15 bullets in a single magazine
with the extended magazine that can hold 33 bullets).(Fields The Arizona Shootings: Pistol
Built a Reputation on its Style, Ease of Use 1) The Glock is widely used by police forces
because the police officers can shoot up to three times the bullets as the crook in extreme cases.
This has made the Glock widely desired among police officers. This has also unfortunately made

the Glock more desirable to criminals for the same exact reasons. This is why the Glock is being
used more and more in shootings, according to the article.
Furthermore the article Town Says 'No Tanks' to Militarized Police; Growing Unease
Over Departments' Use of Vehicles and
Gear Designed for Battle explains how
Concord, Connecticuts citizens dont want
their police force to become militarized
because law makers are passing bills
allowing the federal government to give the
police hand-me-down military
equipment. The biggest equipment they
give the police force is the BearCat armored vehicles that are used by SWAT (Special Weapons
And Tactics) and old semi-automatic and automatic weapons. The citizens want to avoid the
police department to get armored vehicles like the one in the picture to the right because it gives
the police a sense of militarization. The article explains how there was a 1,500 people signed
petition against the bill that would allow this. Even though the petition was large it wasnt
enough for lawmakers to rethink it and the bill passed without the citizens approval. The article
has Federal Government spokespeople explaining why they are doing this but others arent in
favor of this idea of militarizing the police. Some citizens believe that the Federal Government
is giving the police too much power with all of the military equipment that is being handed down
to them by the Federal Government. Nevertheless, the bill passed and some experts are
questioning if this will have a beneficial outcome or not.

Most may ask why this is an

ongoing concern here in the United
States especially Miami. The answer to
that question is quite simple. The port of
Miami is like a gateway for illegal
weapons, drugs, and other illegal things
that people try to smuggle in to sell in
the Black market. The thing is that those
smugglers will do anything to protect
themselves and their illegal items from the police because they don't want to go to jail and they
don't want their illegal items confiscated because that hurts their profits. So, most of the time
those smugglers are armed with guns (usually semi-automatic or automatic) and will use it if the
police find them and find out what they are doing. It is also like the ongoing problem in the USMexico border. The same thing is happening with people smuggling drugs and other illegal
immigrants. The smugglers are usually armed with automatic or semi-automatic weapons and
will use it if seen. That is why the national government had provided some (but not adequate)
funding for semi-automatic and automatic guns for the border patrol to use to protect the border
from this. The picture on the right shows a police confiscation room where they put all of the
weapons they find in a case. As seen in the picture, most of them are either semiautomatic or
automatic weapons.
The more concerning aspect is the sudden increase in school shootings recently over the
past couple of years. First responders only have a pistol while the suspect is lighting up the
school with semi-automatic or automatic weapons. The more concerning part is that since the

police officer is outgunned he must wait for backup which could take a couple if minutes until
they arrive on scene which could cost many innocent lives because the shooter has more time to
shoot and kill innocent children and staff uncontested. A staggering statistic shows that, guns
are involved in nearly 70% of all homicides and a substantial share of other violent crimes
(Duggan, Mark. "More Guns, More Crime," 1). This exemplifies that guns in general have
dramatically increased the number of criminal acts that have been committed. This statistic was
in the year 2000 and has probably increased since it has been fourteen years since that time. This
statistic also takes into account not only murders but also significant criminal acts like robberies.
All in all, police armament is an exponentially growing problem and debate between
police officers, the federal government, and their citizens. The main focus of this is because of
the reoccurring shootings and murders becoming more common. Police officers are being shot
more frequently in shootings while on the job because the criminals are out gunning them. This
is because the criminals have better weapons that shoot farther and faster than the police officers
guns. This is starting to change but the backlash has slowed the progress of this down. Also,
school shootings and public shootings are becoming more and more common. This is putting the
lives of innocents at sake just because the police dont have the necessary firepower to keep up
with the semi-automatic and automatic weapons that criminals are getting their hands on. This is
due to the growing black market and new innovative guns that make killing easier, faster, and
allowable from longer distances. For instance, a criminal can kill a police officer with a semiautomatic or automatic weapon from two to three times farther than the police officer can with
his or her pistol. Therefore, the criminal can take out the only line of defense that is stopping
them from walking into a school and killing everyone in there. That is why police officers are
lobbying for better weapons like the RCMP in Canada and mostly all, if not all, the other police

forces in North America. Crime rates have gone up because of the advancement of the gun and
the only way to keep up and lower that number is to entrust in the law enforcement and let them
do their jobs that they were trained to do. The only problem with that is that if they dont have
the necessary equipment to do that they will fail just as anyone in that position would. The thing
that has been delaying it the most is that since there have been many instances with shootings
lately, especially in the United States of America, lawmakers have been going back and forth
trying to see just how they can please both the police officers and the citizens that believe giving
them these weapons would make the police force a second military. This is a difficult and
daunting task that has taken many years and still to this day has not been completely solved yet.
Even though this has taken a long time, both police officers and lawmakers that approve of
giving the police better weapons that include armored trucks, better bullet proof vests, and semiautomatic and automatic weapons are optimistic about the plan. They believe they are close to
finding a solution to this ongoing problem but that solution could come one year, ten years, or a
hundred years from now. This is an ongoing problem in every community and should be taken
seriously. Many lives are at stake every year because of this issue.
Annotated Bibliography
1. Duggan, Mark. "More Guns, More Crime." NBER Working Paper Series 1.1 (2000): 145. The National Bureau of Economic Research. The National Bureau of Economic
Research. Web. 24 Nov. 2014. <http://www.nber.org/papers/w7967.pdf>.
2. Fields, Gary. "The Arizona Shootings: Pistol Built a Reputation on Its Style, Ease of
Use." The Arizona Shootings: Pistol Built a Reputation on Its Style, Ease of Use 12 Jan.
2011, 1st ed.: 1. Print.
3. Gillis, Charlie. "Dying Shame." Maclean's 127.29 (2014): 16-18. Print.

4. Ionescu, Catalin. "Relatively Analysis of Experimental and Numerical Results in

Response to Impact Between Piercing - Incendiary Bullets and Armoured Skin." Trends
in the Development of Machinery and Associated Technology 1.1 (2008): 829-32. Print.
5. Levitz, Jennifer. "Town Says 'No Tanks' to Militarized Police; Growing Unease Over
Departments' Use of Vehicles and Gear Designed for Battle." Town Says 'No Tanks' to
Militarized Police; Growing Unease Over Departments' Use of Vehicles and Gear
Designed for Battle 7 Feb. 2014, 1st ed.: 1. Print.
6. "Russian Police "heavy Armament" Purchases Intended for North Caucasus." Russian
Police "heavy Armament" Purchases Intended for North Caucasus 4 Mar. 2012, 1st ed.:
1. Print.
7. Weber, Diane. "Warrior Cops The Ominous Growth of Parmilitarism in American Police
Departments." Warrior Cops The Ominous Growth of Parmilitarism in American Police
Departments. 1st ed. Vol. 50. Virginia: CATO Institute Briefing Papers, 1999. 1-14.
Print.