# Quote — Ben Aaronovitch, The Hanging Tree

> From a policing point of view, guns are a pain. Once someone is known to be tooled up, your operational priorities are suddenly fucked up. It all becomes about managing whoever was stupid enough to pull a gun in central London and your number one priority is public safety, followed closely by officer safety and then, not so closely, by the safety of the moron with the gun.

- Author: [Ben Aaronovitch](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch.md)
- Book: [The Hanging Tree](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch/the-hanging-tree.md)
- Page: 68
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ben_Aaronovitch#The_Hanging_Tree_(2016)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch/the-hanging-tree/from-a-policing

## More from this book

> For police officers, “close relative” frequently rhymes with “prime suspect.”

p. 34 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch/the-hanging-tree/for-police-officers.md)

> The media always calls this sort of thing senseless, but the motive made sense—it was just stupid, is what it was.

p. 112 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch/the-hanging-tree/the-media-always.md)

> The main purpose of an administrative meeting is to establish collective guilt for whatever fuck-up arises out of its decisions.

p. 150 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch/the-hanging-tree/the-main-purpose.md)