""To say that putting thousands of armed police officers out among the public is not a good idea doesn't make sense to me.""

But that isn't what was suggested, is it?

The actual intention is to arm elderly ex cops, ex soldiers, ex security guards and ex private investigators.

Apart from the doubts as to whether they will WANT to be unpaid cops, their reflexes, eyesight and general fitness will be at best suspect.

Given the aforementioned zero to six feet average hit rate of 43% by young fully capable officers with up to date proficiency assessments, what's your best guess as to how many miscreants will be hit and how many innocent bystanders?

With one or two widely spaced and unusual incidents (killing far fewer than any of the regular US mass shootings), almost all UK gun deaths are crook on crook, with illegal guns.

Our cops don't use or carry guns, and only rarely deploy tazers, yet we have 41 gun deaths in a year when the US loses over 11,000 citizens.

Even when our armed response teams are called out, nine times out of ten (maybe many more) end without a shot being fired.

We have violence here too, but nothing like what you see daily.

Don T.