Geoff Barton is a skilled ‘thief taker’. Joining the MPS in 1975, he learnt his trade in Brixton and Walworth, where his size, strength and power soon made him a fearsome adversary. Selected for firearms training he focused on tackling dangerous robbers, murderers and serial killers. This makes him an ideal person to describe the dilemmas faced by the police as they and the citizens involved deployed a motley collection of dormant firearms, cutlasses and makeshift weapons.