LONDON UNARMED FORCE

Evening Star, Issue 18052, 21 August 1922, Page 7

LONDON UNARMED FORCE

AT MERCY OF GUNMEN. AN EXPLODED FAD. [From Our London Correspondent.] June 29. Naturally the murder of Sir Homy Wilson has revived once more in an acute form tho old controversy about arming the police. One imagines the result may bo that our London police will shortly cease to bo the only unarmed force in any capital in the world. Nowadays every undesirable or desperado carries an automatic as a matter of course. A Scotland Yard official! told mo recently that he believed a “gun" was now as common on this side of the Atlantic as tho other. But whereas tho Now York policeman carries a pistol that resembles a small machine gun, the London policeman' has only n short truncheon, handy enough for trench fighting, but against a revolver a yard away. This places a premium on the worst kinds of clime, because s*criminals 5 *criminals know they will hold one great advantage. They will bo the only possessor of a weapon of formidable precision. It is idle for Horae Office officials to talk of the regulation allowing any constable to have a pistol who is on dangerous duty, or to talk about the mischances of such a weapon in unskilled hands. Every policeman may suddenly need a firearm, and revolver practice' is as necessary as button polish for modern constables'.