Shooting at Parliament

PiperCub

I don't understand how policeman don't have a light firearms too. It just seems inconceivable.

Sonic67

Also note, in the rest of Europe, we've had people walking round gunning people down (Tunisia, France etc). The best they can do here is drive a car at someone and knife people.

Yes it's not nice and it's global news but it could be people with AKs. This might be as bad as it ever gets.

PiperCub

Patrick mercer, a former mp who carried out a review of security at Westminster has just said on BBC news that they did not consider a risk of ak47 people on Westminster is likely. So I suspect they have no plan to deal with that, but in some respects I guess how can they? Mr mercer also said that with loan wolves they considered measures but thought that they would be out of sink to freedom of movement and liberty, so took no action.

I've done quite a bit of clay shooting and I've often wondered what I'd do if i was in a position to use a weapon to protect citizens against a terrorist. I would use it, but these loan wolves in Paris and Tunisia etc, it's a fact they would probably not have got anywhere near as far as they did if citizens were armed. I'm not advocating that but I feel a huge sick feeling to think tens or hundreds of our citizens could get shot in a mass shooting terrorist attack, where nobody can defend themselves. But then if everyone was armed and gun ownership was on a us level, it would probably make it easier for guns to get into the wrong hands. But safer amongst responsible citizens, as in some us towns where gun crime rates are lower than the uk.  It's a hugely difficult thing to tackle but as security services knew this guy yesterday, what more could they have done to have stopped him by relevant controls and legal powers?

Bl4ckGryph0n

Well I've had combat training with knives and bayonets. When someone is that close they can use a knife a sidearm wouldn't do much at that point anyway. If you spotted the threat from a distance that someone had a nice you would attempt to not get that close. So unfortunately only those directly involved can truly judge the situation.

And lets not forget, the police in those countries is armed Didn't make any material difference.

Sonic67

And in the US many ordinary people and the police are armed and there are still regular shooting sprees and the killer kills far more than happened here.

hdsport

Well for a start when asked they generally don't want them only 20% nationally and 26% of the Met wanted all officers to be routinely given firearms.

Nearly half of Met police officers want more firearms specialists

Now we can talk about how many specialist officers we  need and where they should be deployed, I'd assume for instance that in future no one guarding a entrance to Parliament will be unarmed.  We only need look at the US to see what can happen with routinely armed police for every life you might save in relatively rare terrorist attacks how many would die during day to day policing?

Sonic67

Note on the police firearms course they do get attacked by a guy from 10m away with a rubber knife. A lot of the time there isn't sufficient time to take their weapon, cock it, take the safety off and aim and fire on the attacker. This is against an attack they know is coming.

PiperCub

Yes there are these regular shooting sprees in the us but I think that's more a function of the weapon being used. Anyone can go and buy an army grade automatic rifle.

In the uk a nutcase wouldn't get far with a double barrelled shotgun and having to self load, because the hungerford massacre (Michael Ryan) in the 80s bannned automatic shotguns.

In the states though the rates of gun crime in areas where there are not gangs, and sensible law abiding citizens own guns, gun deaths are statistically smaller than the uk. This is because guns possessed by ordinary citizens would prevent anyone going out with a gun to kill people.

PiperCub

I understand the arguments of police not wanting them, but if you were the police officer who had been killed in not having a gun (I'm not speculating on if a gun or not was material yesterday), your family would have something to say and why commanders didn't stipulate that a gun be on the officers person, if it was material and could have prevented the death.  I think the police commanders owe a duty of care for officers to be armed and it's a bit irresponsible for them not to stipulate same, for officers especially in such locations like Westminster.

My impression in the states is many officers will use guns against the risks, where they could otherwise use tasers, but sometimes don't carry tasers. Eg some videos which show this online. It's just using the appropriate one, which is clearly a very tough call.

Bl4ckGryph0n

I can't say I've looked at the statistics so will take your representation at face value.

My inclination would be that the conclusion is not necessarily supported by the facts. But I'm happy to be proven wrong