The news website visir.is published an interview with policeman G.Jökull Gíslason, where he raises the question whether weapons should be in Icelandic police cars, similar to practice in the UK and Norway, where police, as in Iceland, are unarmed.
According to G.Jökull, the crime scene in Iceland is changing with, for example, the presence of criminal gangs . Gangs present a greater danger than the individual criminals who operated in the country previously, are sometimes armed.
Icelandic Police. Photo: IPA
Iceland is not a weapons-free country, despite the absence of an army, as many people possess weapons for recreational hunting.
According to G. Jökull, the best way to secure both the police and the civil population might be to allow police to carry weapons in locked compartments in police vehicles.
Ögmundur Jónasson, Minister of Interior, was not keen on the idea. He thought that it would be best for Icelandic police to stay unarmed, except in special situations.
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