Police officers need guns even when off-duty, to protect themselves
25 August 2019
Law enforcement officers carrying their guns while off duty are at risk of being exposed to theft, suicides and family homicides.
This is according to Gun Free South Africa's Adele Kirsten, who said research, nationally and globally, has shown that it is not safe for cops to have their service pistols on them, outside of work.
Kirsten said South Africa was faced with a problem of police killings, with most of the officers being attacked while off-duty.
Attacks on officers result in their firearms being taken away by criminals, and in some cases they are used to kill them. Kirsten said, preventing the scourge of attacks on law enforcement officers would require an audit to establish which cops need to be armed, even when they were not on duty.