GRA president Dermot O'Brien told Irish broadcaster RTÉ that the force's unarmed status was envied but he added that society was becoming more dangerous.
Ahead of the GRA annual conference on Monday, Mr O'Brien said officers needed an "intermediate form of force" such as a stun gun.
He also said they were angry about pay.
The GRA president said his members had taken a 25% pay cut since 2009 and he called for their salaries to be restored by the next government.
The GRA is the largest professional body to represent members of An Garda Síochána (Irish police force) and campaigns for better pay and working conditions.
Its membership currently stands at about 10,500 officers.

Following an inspection, the officials decided that areas of the playing surface were unsafe.
No new date has yet been set for the game to be played.

The inmates stole five rifles; a guard and an inmate were killed in an exchange of fire.
The authorities have begun a manhunt for the fugitives with the help of UN peacekeepers stationed in the country.
The Haitian government tweeted that it condemned what it described as a prison mutiny.
"One guard was killed during the incident," Justice Minister Camille Edouard Junior told Reuters news agency.
"Three prisoner were wounded, including one who died as a consequence of his wounds."
Eleven escapees have so far been detained, and checkpoints have been set up on roads near the prison.
However, inmates at Arcahaie do not wear prison uniforms, making it easier for them to blend in with the general population.
Haitian prisons are notoriously overcrowded and inmates spend years in pre-trial detention.

It will determine whether irregularities were committed and the election should be held again.
Freedom Party candidate Norbert Hofer narrowly lost to the former leader of the Greens, Alexander Van der Bellen, by less than a percentage point.
The court heard from about 90 witnesses during two weeks of public hearings.
The Freedom Party argues that the way postal votes were handled was among numerous irregularities that culminated in its defeat to the Greens by just under 31,000 votes.
It says that postal ballots were illegally handled in 94 out of 117 districts.
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If elected Mr Hofer would have been the first far-right head of state of an EU country,
Preliminary results in the vote count suggested he had a narrow lead but that disappeared after about 700,000 postal votes were counted.
The party also claims it has evidence that under-16s and foreigners were allowed to vote.
Mr Van der Bellen was eventually declared the winner of the largely ceremonial post with 50.3% of the vote against Mr Hofer's 49.7%. The president elect is due to be sworn in on 8 July.
His lawyer insisted that any irregularities that did exist had a negligible impact on the ballot.
Correspondents say that if the Constitutional Court disagrees with him, the election would be invalidated - a move that would send shockwaves throughout the country.
Such a ruling would also mean that Austria would be compelled to hold another vote in the coming months.
If a new election is ordered, departing President Heinz Fischer will be replaced on a temporary basis by three parliamentary officials, including Mr Hofer.
Irish police officers should be issued with stun guns, according to the Garda Representative Association (GRA), which represents rank and file officers.
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Saturday's National League game between Dagenham & Redbridge and Bromley has been postponed because of a frozen pitch.
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More than 170 inmates have escaped from a Haitian prison in Arcahaie, 45km (30 miles) north of the capital Port-au-Prince.
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Austria's Constitutional Court is due to rule on the far-right Freedom Party's challenge to the result of last month's presidential run-off vote.