give them guns?

to seriously tackle the ‘tonto’ menace, JPJ’‘s director general, datuk emran kadir wants his men to be armed with firearms. he justified the needs for firearms on the fact that hooligans are getting bolder each day and there had been incidents in which JPJ officers had been attacked.

this reminds me another department that had been toying with the idea of arming their officers with firearms – the MPPJ. this came about especially during their raid of illegal VCD sellers. tontos too existed among illegal VCD sellers of course. and there were cases of the MPPJ officers being assaulted by tontos.

now… to arm or not to arm?… that is highly debatable and there seems to be two sides coming up with all the pros and cons.

on one hand, it looks ok for the officers to be arm for self-protection, but on the other hand, the fear is if the officers are armed, they might become trigger-happy…. started shooting for some small or simple reason.

what do you think? i would think in a way it is good for them to be armed BUT they must learn to be responsible, using the firearm only when it is really necessary. well… that’s easier said than done i suppose. is there an easy… and agreeable to all… solution to this?

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note: i realised that the MPPJ website is not working. well as wits0 would have said, what do you expect… govt. sites like that one. anyway, have you guys gone to e myGovernment portal? it looks quite impressive with all govt. ministries/departments listed.