Protecting our police: Should NZ frontline officers carry guns?

Growing concern about public safety has reignited the idea of arming our frontline police officers.

The police union says 68% of officers support routine arming – and, our new police commissioner, Richard Chambers, is apparently ‘open’ to discussions around it – although he’s also said we’re ‘proud of having unarmed police’ and he’d like to keep it that way.

This is all while, in the first hours of 2025, a car rammed into a police vehicle at a Nelson gathering – Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming later died in hospital, another officer was critically injured. This was followed by another attempted ramming a week later.

So do we need to look at better protect those whose jobs are to protect us – or are there risks to giving more power to the police?

Today on The Front Page, Auckland University criminology lecturer Dr. Emmy Rākete joins us to discuss.

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You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.

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