I’m sure you were sickened and disgusted by the footage of that vile piece of scum punching an Auckland police officer eight times in the head and smashing him to the ground.

Would these reprobates have the same perverse bravado to have a crack at cops, if our police had guns on their hips? I don’t think so.

It’s just one reason why I’ve long supported the general arming of our frontline police. But that’s not going to happen under this Government.

I was struck with the Police Commissioner’s candid assessment yesterday.

Violent crime behaviour directed at police is ramping up like never before, says Andrew Coster, as is the surge in gun crime.

So why is the Commissioner and his Minister, Poto Williams, such walkovers for the woke fringe groups who suck up far too much media oxygen as they spew their anti-police bile?

Look at the groups who ponied up last year and went hell for leather to get those Armed Response Teams dumped.

Those mobile teams, ARTs, were designed to be able to rapidly respond to deadly serious incidents and deescalate them quick smart.

Unlike the Armed Offenders Unit, which isn’t tooled up fulltime, or on patrol, these ARTs were highly nimble and circulating.

But they were scrapped on the grounds they scared people and failed to secure community support. But who were the prime opponents?

Action Station, Just Speak, the Green Party and People Against Prisons Aotearoa. They raged against the ART trial and bombarded the police with thousands of complaints, to get the ARTs axed.

Do these agenda-driven agitators seriously embody the everyday voice of New Zealand? Of course not. So why does Andrew Coster give these outfits credence, by surrendering to their squeals, in the name of policing by consent?

I mentioned on Monday that the Armed Response Teams should absolutely be reinstated, without delay, given the surging gun violence. Yesterday, National joined that call, and good on them.

It is not acceptable for the Police Minister or Police Commissioner to allow themselves to be bullied into submission or overwhelmed by radical pressure groups.

Toughen Up.