Police are considering having armed officers on permanent stand-by to counter the gun threat.

The news comes after several high profile operations at the courts involving armed officers.

Police Commissioner Jonathan Smith told : ?In recent years there has been an increase in firearm deployment. ?For the last two years the force had been considering having armed officers at HQ on stand-by to shorten the response time.?

Currently the emergency response team is made up of officers pulled in from other units.

?We are evaluating the justification and the costs involved,? said Mr. Smith. ?We are building the data and tracking firearms intelligence. Are deployments happening at particular times of the day or week??

The review results are due in the next two months.

Until then Mr. Smith said he would not divulge statistics about firearms in the community. ?It?s been steady over the last few years including firearms we have recovered. Clearly in the last five years there have been a multitude of occasions where firearms have been used in offences. Also we have recovered firearms.?

Mr. Smith said there were very strict guidelines on deployment of armed Police.

?I am fully satisfied those deployment decisions are justified given the nature of information we have ? which I cannot share.

?Those are the times we are in. We have to do that to protect our officers, the public and show this community that we are serious and we will not back away.

?We are not going to shy away from seizing firearms. At least twice in the last 14 months our unarmed officers have encountered the presence of firearms at street level so we will continue to aggressively pursue all the firearms information which comes our way.?

In February 2004 a man attempted to shoot two Policeman in Court Street and late last month a man a loaded gun fell out of a man?s pocked as he struggled with Police on Dundonald Street.

Two years ago Government ran an amnesty which netted a handful of guns.

Asked if there would be another amnesty Mr. Smith said the decision would have to be made by others, including the Director of Public Prosecutions, who would have to make the decision not to prosecute those who surrendered guns.