Varadkar would ‘absolutely say yes’ to arming Gardaí, if asked

45 comments
  1. I honestly don’t mind. Police from my native country (Poland) is in some parts armed, and the procedures around discharging a firearm and the following investigation is insane. We have a much bigger police presence as well, and we end up with only a handful of police shootings yearly (less than 10).

    All major countries with much larger population sizes already arm their police forces and there’s heavily armed paramilitary police force in major capitals patrolling. You certainly notice the presence and feel safer as a part of it, at least in my case.

    Gardai as it stands, are an underfunded, overstretched laughing stock of a police force and the “undesirables” already have little to no reason why they should be afraid of them, thus the rise of random senseless violence in broad daylight in the recent years.

    Though I think before we do give them lethal weapons, Leo should focus on growing the force and increasing the almost non existent presence on the streets, the response times are abysmal in my experience (if they show up at all)

  2. The majority of crimes do not require an armed response. For the small number that do, we have the armed response unit.

    Not only would it be a waste of money(for an already underfunded organisation) to buy all the extra weapons and run the training, it’s the idea that every garda should have a tool that has so few good reasons to use it, I do not trust the average garda to consistently make the right call.

    The actual problem with the gardai is that they are understaffed and underfunded. What are they hoping to do? Save time by shooting their way back acceptable service levels?

  3. I don’t feel particularly strongly either way about this to be honest.
    Most other European countries have police forces that are armed much more than our own and I don’t see any issues with that.

    Probably make more sense to just continue to expand the ASU rather than giving every Gaurd a gun.

    Increased ongoing fitness testing and martial arts training should be implemented across the board though.

  4. One shot, bang!bang! Varadkar & FG underfunding AGS for years, using them as personal security for TD’s, closing stations all over the country ,& now wants to arm the Gardaí, makes loads of sense from the law & order party, fucking gowls!

  5. Is this actually being asked for though? They mention the attack on the 2 gardai but that’s a result of lack of garda resources and poor justice being delivered.

  6. Can we first get real psych evals done on members? And always on recording cameras with data being streamed back to a secure undeleteable recording system?

    Im not against guns but i want the gardai knowing they are being watched and held 100% accountable.

    Other gardai need to be able to anonymously report issues with other gardai too

  7. Why, is there an onslaught of violent crimes against the guards?

    I’d be more in favour of getting them to be active in communities and not entirely useless and untrustworthy.

  8. How about actually tackling the real reason no one wants to be a Garda. No one they arrest gets fucking punished by the courts! What the fuck will throwing guns into the mix solve other than more criminals thinking they need guns because Garda have them.

  9. Just shows how far out of touch he is with the average person, maybe it’s a personal thing as he wants his Garda bodyguards to be armed? (If he has any)

    You always hear that they want a taser and body cams like in other countries but so far the budget obviously hasn’t stretched to it. I don’t think most people would want nor the Gardai themselves would want an actual gun on their hip all the time. They often deal with drunk or drugged people, suicidal or just crazy people, why add a lethal weapon into that mix?

    Even the Gardai that ended up in hospital after being assaulted in Ballyfermot, I doubt they’d have wanted to shoot their attackers like, better equipment, more Gardai at the call and proper sentencing for the attackers makes more sense than possibly having to kill someone.

  10. Constitutionally, Gardaí must be unarmed, but how we have armed Gardaí is because the Gardaí are responsible for issuing firearm licenses.

    I think it’s a very bad idea to arm all Gardaí, for many reasons, but primarily for trust and engagement.

  11. No fucking way should these cunts be armed. I wouldn’t trust a Garda to find their own arse with both hands.

  12. Varadkar, someone who has ZERO experience whatsoever, in any context, with firearms, thinks this would be a good idea if proposed. Right……

  13. Everyone knows that one garda who’s a window twiching cunt who can’t leave work at the door even after retirement, or that one cunt who’s on a fuckin power trip. Imagine them armed? Fuck that

  14. Terrible idea. Guns will automatically lead to needless deaths. We don’t have a gun culture in this country so don’t normalise it amongst our Garda

  15. I see Varadkar likes to take lessons from pre-GFA Northern Ireland/North of Ireland.

    TLDR: Varadkar is a wanker

  16. Leo Varadkar has just become somebody I won’t even *consider* voting for, and that extends to every Fine Gael candidate for as long as he’s leader.

  17. “I’ll do whatever the fuck you want at this moment in time”, says politician seeking votes and has no intention to live up to any promise made

  18. I think we have one of the best police forces in the world and I think the majority of the public support them. Here is the government trying to fix something that’s not broken..The Garda do not need to be armed. The response units do a great job

  19. Anyone who lives in a predominantly poor area will know how negative interactions with the guards can be. Now imagine if they were armed.

  20. Whatever about the crime in Ireland. I just don’t see the need. We are still an incredibly safe country and the idea of adding guns into the mix is counter intuitive.

    I believe when you scale these things upwards there is always a reaction to keep up. Police have guns now, oh now we as criminals should arm ourselves more. Plus let’s be real the Gardai as a force are barely fit to be considered our police let alone arming those.

    Half of them can’t discipline themselves let alone a deadly firearm.

  21. Guards should have guns end of story. A few instances of some scrotey Canada goose laden “future lawyer/doctor/engineer” scumbag getting his chest turned into a pizza, would surely have the rest reconsidering their actions.

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