Police To Have Firearms Drill

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30529, 26 August 1964, Page 3

Police To Have Firearms Drill

(New Zealand Press • Association) . WELLINGTON, August 25. New Zealand policemen, from next year, are to have annual range training with rifles, semi-automatic pistols and revolvers, but the director of police training (Chief-Inspector G. Claridge) said today the new programme did not change the long-standing policy of having unarmed police.

“Our policemen have never carried firearms on normal duties and we want to keep it that way,” he said. “However, there is the odd occasion when policemen must be armed and when that happens we want them to be able to use their weapons. The new programme will stop them from ‘getting rusty’,” he said.

Twenty-five policemen from all parts of New Zealand completed a four-day weapons training course with the Army at Waiouru last month, and

next month will follow it up with a four-day course in instruction techniques at the Police School, Trentham. They Will be the nucleus of a firearms instruction team.

Weapons . training will be in two phases, one for firstyear policemen and the other for all other members up to and including officers to the rank of inspector. . First-year men will receive a day of classroom training and probably a day on the range with rifles and a day on the range with sidearms. All others will probably have two days a year on the range, one with rifles and the other with sidearms. Range shooting will be from a variety of positions.