[marktwain]

Anyone seen police with empty holsters in other countries?

[Teotwawki]

Disarmed or unarmed? There is a difference.

[WellyP]

Nice try! I’ve traveled A LOT through S. and Central America. Most cops are armed!

[Monterrosa-24]

Especially in countries like Colombia and El Salvador it is important for police (and regular folks) to be armed at home as there are threats against them other than during business hours. A clean policeman may have threats from gangs, corrupt police, and others all at the same time.

There is the old “plata o plomo” threat (take the SILVER or get the LEAD). So governments organize groups of “untouchables” to move around to different jurisdictions but the problem is persistent since a cartel may offer a policeman a year’s salary as a down payment.

[Trapper6012]

I am in the Philippines. Same thing here. Most if not all off duty cops, check the handgun in before leaving work. I have seen so many in uniform on train and metro rail stations, in uniform on the way to or from work with an empty holster.

[naturalman1975]

You would rarely see a police officer in Australia with an empty holster - but you will see quite a few who have neither a weapon or holster because the holsters are issued with the firearms. At least up until recently - in my state at least, it’s just become policy (with our recent elevation of our terrorist alert state) for police in uniform to be armed at all times - before that, quite often they wouldn’t carry firearms if they were on non-patrol/response duties.

I’ve seen reports (I haven’t checked into them) that suggests that the first police on the scene at the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996 were unarmed and that might have turned out quite differently if that hadn’t been the case. It was a peaceful rural area and the local police didn’t see the need to be armed.

Police here are issued with firearms at the start of shifts and return them at the end of shifts. Police can get permission to carry a personal firearm when off duty (I’m not sure of the exact conditions on that), but historically very few have done this. I suspect that may have changed more recently. But that would be separate from their service firearms.

[ozzymandus]

I have heard that many Latin American armies store their rifles with the bolts removed and stored elsewhere, to cut down the number of coups.

[JoeFromSidney]

When I was a visiting scholar in Brazil I made a point of (unobviously) looking at the guns carried on duty by the cops. I was particularly interested in how many were carrying Taurus pistols, which are made there. To my surprise, there were very few Taurus pistols being carried by the cops I saw. They carried a wide variety of pistols. This was 30 years ago. Things may have changed.