Two more incidents since I originally posted this. Would it have made a difference recently?
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Reports of two incidents when police tasered blind men because they couldn't tell the difference between their walking sticks from a gun and sumurai sword.
Blind man Tasered by armed police who thought his walking stick was a gun
Officers Tasered the man with a 50,000 volt stun after he failed to drop the 'weapon' - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a7600131.html
Police Taser blind man mistaking his white stick for a samurai sword - https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/...lind-man-stick
Two more incidents since I originally posted this. Would it have made a difference recently?
I'm more interested to see if people's opinions have changed given the incidents of late.
They responded and killed the terrorists within 8 minutes didn't they? How much quicker could it have been really?
What probably needed is close to hand armed tasks force that are not regular police and not walking the streets but can be deployed discreetly and quickly , those people would be highly trained have access to quick response vehicles and helicopter and vehicles, perhaps a fore that is deeper integration with our armed forces as or of homeland force ,we can ignore this.
However over and above this we need to get to route cause and that means sophisticated measures just as on line monitoring and listening solutions , covert integration into these peoples lives , and ways of thought , that how the Irish issue fell in the end.
Finally only the Muslim's and the close communities living in and around these people can really help , people must be seeing the movement and behavior of these people ,or suspect something is not right , having lived in some tough places in my time , we all knew where the good and bad were, and how to avoid and join them .
we have this, not the helicopter ( as they cannot afford them ) but they have the rapid response Armed units
The issue for me, yes 8 mins was a great time, many more would have been injured or killed if they hadnt been so fast, BUT this was due to be being in central london, i have said this in this thread before, if it was in a more rural location, the ETA would have been 30 mins plus, now that is a scary thought, 30 mins of a group ( with fake suicide vests ) walking down a busy high street stabbing people , we would be looking at far greater numbers of injured and killed people
Are rural areas ever going to be targeted by terrorists? Rarely id say, it's not a threat worth arming every police officer.
How are we affording this anyway with cuts already being made to the police? If security is such a big concern why are areas like the police being cut?
why wouldnt rural area's be targeted, they would have longer to carry out these " low tech attacks " yes sure, they havent been so far ( excluding Michael Ryan in the 80's, maybe more, but his name springs to mind ) , but who knows
as for police cuts and funding, of course we need more funding for them, maybe if we upped a tax for the richer section of society
maybe thats a issue to take up with your local MP
It's not a credible enough threat to arm every police officer in the country though. Chances of it happening are low since terrorists are currently targeting large scale events and urban areas because they cause maximum fear and maximum coverage.
You can't have security for the sake of it if there's no credible threat. The cost and benefits have to be weighed up and currently youd say there is zero benefit even when ignoring the other arguments made in this thread.
The only terrorist attack in a rural area we've had in years is that lunatic who stabbed the mp over brexit.
The three recent mass shootings in the UK were all in rural areas:
Hungerford 1987 16 killed by Michael Ryan
Dunblane 1996 17 killed by Thomas Hamilton
Cumbria 2010 12 killed by Derek Bird
It is clear from these figures that attacking in a rural area gives the murderers more time to kill during their spree. Hopefully any potential terrorists won't have embarked on this particular analysis.
So we give rural areas more armed officers after we have experienced a rural area killing spree
we need to get away from the " lets deal with a issue after it has become one " thinking, and maybe tackle the issue head on
The old saying " Closing the stable door after the horse has bolted " is fairly apt here
Rural areas don't even have coppers, never mind armed ones!
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...ists--10562140
It seems from this he was known, and reported by the Muslim community as being a potential threat, whatever is being done once these reports are placed maybe need to be looked at as something seems to be failing.
Obviously we don't know all the times that reports lead to arrests, but some seem to fall through the cracks.
in respect to this
one of the reporters has just said to Teresa May that one of the attackers from Saturday was on a Documentary ( he might have said BBC ?? ? ) on TV last year waving a IS Flag around in a London park, I understand " freedom of speech " yada yada yada but this must point to another attack by someone known to the authorities
I guess even if they are reported, the report ends up on the right desk and put on " the watch list " they are still free to do what they want
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a7772251.html
I think this police officer would've been more effective with a gun...
fair play to that man, he would have known full well that it wasnt likely to have ended well for him
to quote the Met police fed chairman " “There are barely words to describe their bravery – officers who ran towards danger with no thought for their own safety. "
good luck to him in his recovery