An expert has warned arming Victorian Police with military-style semi-automatic firearms could risk militarising the police force, putting us on a similar path to the United States.

Victoria Police has confirmed it is considering equipping frontline police with powerful long-arm weapons to deal with incidents such as sieges and terrorist attacks.

Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Doug Fryer said the force was assessing whether such weapons were appropriate.

"If it's a thought that Victoria Police are going to be walking around Flinders Street with long-arms as part of business as usual, that's not the case," Assistant Commissioner Fryer said.

"We are looking at the current environment in Victoria and across the nation and if we need to enhance what we provide our members we will."

Criminologist at Bond University and former senior police officer, Terry Goldsworthy, has called on Victoria Police to "resist the trend" of American policing.

"We need to be very careful, we've seen US police move down this path of militarisation. In many respects, militarising the police isn't a suitable response for conducting policing," Dr Goldsworthy said.

"We saw that in the Ferguson riots — where we had police sitting on top of armoured police carriers with 50-caliber machine guns facing a crowd protesting.

"It's just not a suitable tool when you look at that, because there is no way the police could justify opening fire with a machine gun."

Currently, the Special Operations Group and Critical Response Police Teams have access to long-arm firearms, but general duty police do not.

Use of new weapons needs to be 'justified'

Police Association Victoria secretary Wayne Gatt said the union believed there was a need for such weapons.

"We have, for some time, advocated for the provision of long-arm weapons for police to deal with the heightened terror threat, the potential for increased firepower pre-or-post a terror incident and to provide an adequate regional response capability to armed offender situations until metropolitan resources arrive to assist," he said.

Dr Goldsworthy said there must be clear reasons to arm frontline police with such high-powered weapons, such as evidence that terrorists are using such firearms themselves or a proven deficiency with current weapons.

"There needs to be a justification as to why do they see that they need it? There's got to be a reason for this," he said.

"You need to show that police are being outgunned or that there's a problem with the current weapons being used."

Dr Goldsworthy said recent terrorist cases did not show such a trend, with low-technology weapons such as knives and shotguns being used.

He said there were other issues with the high-powered weapons.

The Special Operations Group has access to long-arm guns but general duty officers do not. ( ABC TV )

"Once you've got the rifle out, you're stuck with it unless you're going to put it on the ground next to you, which is highly dangerous to do," he said.

"It's a far different proposition to a handgun, which you can store on your person and do that very quickly to respond to the changing environment."

Assistant Commissioner Fryer said he was satisfied with the way police have dealt with recent incidents like the Bourke Street and Flinders Street attacks.

"They did everything they needed to do. They were there so quick. I'm incredibly proud of how they responded to both of those incidents," he said.

"They put themselves in harm's way to protect the public and that's what they did at both."