I wanted to start today with a landmark study from Monash University. It's found that a routine arming of police officers does not lead to a spike in trigger happy coppers. In fact, after Aussie coppers were armed in the early 1990s, there was a downward trend in shooting rates. The research, which investigated 50 years of officer-involved shootings in Australia between 1970 and 2020, challenges the prevailing assumption that increased firearm availability among police inevitably results in higher rates of lethal force. And I think that assumption exists here.  

You think that by routinely arming officers, there will be more shootings. That doesn't appear to be borne out across the ditch. Police in most countries are routinely armed, but they're not in England, New Zealand, Norway, and Scotland. Guns are available, but they're not worn as of the standard uniform. And this is often due to concerns that arming officers could damage their relationship with the public or lead to a more authoritarian style of policing. The lead researcher of the study at Monash, Dr Ross Hendy, said the findings provide crucial real-world evidence for countries currently debating whether or not their police should carry guns. It was not followed by an increase in shootings. 

I find that interesting because you would imagine if it's there, you'd use it. But not necessarily so. And I think you've seen where you are going to see a damaging of the relationship between police and the public is when you have officers who are completely brainwashed and unwilling and or unable to use their own discernment, as we saw in the appalling case of Henry Nowak. An utterly appalling case. I haven't been able to watch the full video of that poor young man being handcuffed as he lay dying because once you see something, you cannot unsee it.  

American History X is a case in point. I could not – I started to watch it and then I just could not. But this is what happens when police are too intimidated, too brainwashed, too fearful to use their own critical thinking and instead rely on doctrinaire and tutelage and sitting through endless re-education classes, going from black bad, white good to white bad, black good. You cannot reduce humans to that kind of binary, primitive calculation. And that seems to be what's happened in an attempt to try and rid the British police force of any kind of racism towards minority communities. They have completely flipped it and now you have racism in reverse, which is just as damaging, just as bad. And this is the result. So that's what's going to damage relations between police and the public when police aren't able to use their own discernment and police accordingly. 

How many times do you think the police fired their guns in New Zealand? They're not routinely available, you can access them, so I would have thought maybe 100 – I don't know why. I mean, we're seeing increasingly violent crime, I would have thought maybe 100 times. No. Police discharged their firearms in just three separate events in 2024 Three! Three times! It averages about 5.5 times a year over the past 10 years. That is a phenomenally small number of times that police actually fire their weapons. When they fire them, they tend to fire them for a reason, and the result tends to be terminal. You could hardly accuse our police force of being trigger happy. The police say they're very glad that their de-escalation training is working. The presentation of firearms, sponge bullets, tasers, and batons is far more often than that. But they don't use them, they just show the offender, the person, what they've got, but they don't just pull them out and use them. That shows that they're thinking, they're discerning.  

While the Police Association has advocated for routine arming in recent times, for a long time they did not. But as policing has changed, as policemen have been shot and killed, they have called for routine arming. Politicians have been more cautious. A routine arming trial was carried out in 2019 and 2020 but not continued because the Police Commissioner of the time, Andrew Coster, said they created fear in communities. So that that didn't happen. The low rate of police firing their weapons is incredible when you consider that the firearms were pointed at police in 19 incidents over 2024 – eight times they were fired at. So they've fired at fewer criminals than criminals have fired at police.

I think if the police want to be armed, I think the stats show they have the self-restraint, they have the discernment to be able to use them. The Monash study says when it came to Aussie police, routinely arming them did not lead to an increase in use of firearms. In fact, there was a de-escalation of them. So the studies from Monash, our own statistics from New Zealand, say to me that if the police want to be armed, they’ve earned the right to bear sidearms, if that’s what they think they need to do. 

I wanted to start today with a landmark study from Monash University. It's found that a routine arming of police officers does not lead to a spike in trigger happy coppers. In fact, after Aussie coppers were armed in the early 1990s, there was a downward trend in shooting rates. The research, which investigated 50 years of officer-involved shootings in Australia between 1970 and 2020, challenges the prevailing assumption that increased firearm availability among police inevitably results in higher rates of lethal force. And I think that assumption exists here. &nbsp;
You think that by routinely arming officers, there will be more shootings. That doesn't appear to be borne out across the ditch. Police in most countries are routinely armed, but they're not in England, New Zealand, Norway, and Scotland. Guns are available, but they're not worn as of the standard uniform. And this is often due to concerns that arming officers could damage their relationship with the public or lead to a more authoritarian style of policing. The lead researcher of the study at Monash, Dr Ross Hendy, said the findings provide crucial real-world evidence for countries currently debating whether or not their police should carry guns. It was not followed by an increase in shootings.&nbsp;
I find that interesting because you would imagine if it's there, you'd use it. But not necessarily so. And I think you've seen where you are going to see a damaging of the relationship between police and the public is when you have officers who are completely brainwashed and unwilling and or unable to use their own discernment, as we saw in the appalling case of Henry Nowak. An utterly appalling case. I haven't been able to watch the full video of that poor young man being handcuffed as he lay dying because once you see something, you cannot unsee it. &nbsp;
American History X is a case in point. I could not – I started to watch it and then I just could not. But this is what happens when police are too intimidated, too brainwashed, too fearful to use their own critical thinking and instead rely on doctrinaire and tutelage and sitting through endless re-education classes, going from black bad, white good to white bad, black good. You cannot reduce humans to that kind of binary, primitive calculation. And that seems to be what's happened in an attempt to try and rid the British police force of any kind of racism towards minority communities. They have completely flipped it and now you have racism in reverse, which is just as damaging, just as bad. And this is the result. So that's what's going to damage relations between police and the public when police aren't able to use their own discernment and police accordingly.&nbsp;
How many times do you think the police fired their guns in New Zealand? They're not routinely available, you can access them, so I would have thought maybe 100 – I don't know why. I mean, we're seeing increasingly violent crime, I would have thought maybe 100 times. No. Police discharged their firearms in just three separate events in 2024 Three! Three times! It averages about 5.5 times a year over the past 10 years. That is a phenomenally small number of times that police actually fire their weapons. When they fire them, they tend to fire them for a reason, and the result tends to be terminal. You could hardly accuse our police force of being trigger happy. The police say they're very glad that their de-escalation training is working. The presentation of firearms, sponge bullets, tasers, and batons is far more often than that. But they don't use them, they just show the offender, the person, what they've got, but they don't just pull them out and use them. That shows that they're thinking, they're discerning. &nbsp;
While the Police Association has advocated for routine arming in recent times, for a long time they did not. But as policing has changed, as policemen have been shot and killed, they have called for routine arming. Politicians have been more cautious. A routine arming trial was carried out in 2019 and 2020 but not continued because the Police Commissioner of the time, Andrew Coster, said they created fear in communities. So that that didn't happen. The low rate of police firing their weapons is incredible when you consider that the firearms were pointed at police in 19 incidents over 2024 – eight times they were fired at. So they've fired at fewer criminals than criminals have fired at police.
I think if the police want to be armed, I think the stats show they have the self-restraint, they have the discernment to be able to use them. The Monash study says when it came to Aussie police, routinely arming them did not lead to an increase in use of firearms. In fact, there was a de-escalation of them. So the studies from Monash, our own statistics from New Zealand, say to me that if the police want to be armed, they’ve earned the right to bear sidearms, if that’s what they think they need to do.&nbsp;

Join Kerre Woodham one of New Zealand’s best loved personalities as she dishes up a bold, sharp and energetic show Monday to Friday 9am-12md on Newstalk ZB. News, opinion, analysis, lifestyle and entertainment – we’ve got your morning listening covered.

Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Kerre Woodham: The police have earned the right to bear arms

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/c4f135a1-1eee-4ba5-a37b-b45f00036d83/transcript