THE nation will be deeply shocked by yesterday’s tragic events in Greater Manchester, where two unarmed women police officers were lured into a trap and murdered in a gun and grenade attack.

The killings of PC Nicola Hughes, 23, and PC Fiona Bone, 32, are a devastating reminder of the dangers faced by police officers every day.

It will inevitably give fresh impetus to the debate about how best to protect police officers. Indeed, the son and brother of former North-East police officer David Rathband, who suffered terrible injuries at the hands of gunman Raoul Moat, have reacted by calling for police officers to be routinely armed.

With passions running so high, and with Mr Rathband’s family bound to attract significant public sympathy, it would be easy to say the time has come to give our police guns.

We have huge respect for the job police officers do. We also appreciate how Mr Rathband’s loved ones must feel in view of the ultimately fatal agonies he suffered. But we still believe it would be wrong to routinely arm our police officers because it would surely lead to an escalation of gun crime in this country.

Police weapons on the streets would be matched by more criminal weapons, tensions would rise, accidents would happen, and Britain would descend into a more frightening place to live.

A Police Federation survey of 47,000 officers in 2006 found that 82 per cent were opposed to the idea of routinely arming officers. That speaks volumes.

Yesterday was one of the darkest days in the recent history of the British police. But we should resist the calls to put guns into the hands of every police officer.

It would not make the streets safer – it would have the opposite effect.