A Question re British police

[merentha13.livejournal.com]

Doyle worked for the Met,Scotland Yard and CID - if I recall correctly (sometimes I get canon and fanon all mixed together!) - and he was an expert marksman. Would he have been allowed to carry a gun in any of his police roles? In the Drug squad? Undercover? My story has a apart that kind of depends on him being with some group of police that would be allowed to carry. Help?

Comments

[sc-fossil.livejournal.com]

Greengerbil's info is pretty good: http://hatstand.slashcity.net/charinfo/doyle-canon.html

I only know about guns from Life on Mars. :) In that series the coppers were issued guns only for very specific operations. They didn't carry them routinely. I'm sure somebody will have great info for you.

[merentha13.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link - very good info there!

[kiwisue.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_use_of_firearms_in_the_United_Kingdom

This might help. I'm sure I've seen more info elsewhere, will have a look.

[kiwisue.livejournal.com]

Aaaand these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_unit

http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/history-from-police-archives/RB1/Pt4/pt4FirearmsSupTeam.html

In Heat Trace by Helen Raven, Doyle is a member of the Met (Metropolitan Police) Firearms Squad - meaning he was an "authorised shot" while deployed to a regular station job. See p 27 of the pdf version. I think it's pretty accurate.

[merentha13.livejournal.com]

Thanks for all the links and the info. I've got some reading to do! I appreciate your help. (Heat Trace is one of my favorites - I do remember the gun info there. I'll just have to force myself to re-read a bit of that...)

[inlovewithboth.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely sure, but I would guess they would have to book guns out for assignments. That's certainly the case in The Sweeney.

[kiwisue.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, during Doyle's pre-CI5 time, outside of a couple of extremely elite squads the officers had to be authorised personally to carry ("authorised shots") through training & recognition, secondly the deployment in particular circumstances had to be authorised by the higher ups. Certain squads such as the dog squad seemed to have a higher number of, or expectation of, members being firearms authorised than others.

[merentha13.livejournal.com]

Thanks - that may be the way I'll have to go.