Duncan: "You are all civilians"
I don't believe so , though I stand to be corrected (I'm not a member of any of the emergency services).
Police are citizens of their country like the rest of us, of course, but police officers have legal powers that clerical staff (yes, 'civilians') working for the police service do not.
The flipside is they are also bound by obligations to the service and the state even when they are off duty that the rest of us do not. Not unlike the armed forces, whose ways policing inherited, so I guess its natural that policemen and soliders alike think of those outside the forces/services as civilians.
Besides, what else should they, or could they, call us, that's more accurate or less likely to offend those who take exception to the term?
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