A criminologist is questioning whether the police have actually started routinely arming some officers for day-to-day police work.
New figures show Armed Response Teams were sent to 75 jobs on average a day in the first few weeks of their six month trial which began in late October.
That's 50 times more often than Armed Offenders Squads, which average 1.3 a day.
The police admit some of jobs they go to are low risk like traffic-stops but say they can't have the teams sitting around idle.
Victoria University criminologist Simon Mackenzie says having roving officers with guns, for no specific reason, would meet many people's definition of routine arming.
