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Britain deploys permanently armed police in London

pkbites

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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iXuIroP8-ehxxmXZCND2TU90_UYwD9BGQVV00

London's police department said Friday that a new armed unit is carrying out regular sweeps of districts riven by gun battles between rival drug gangs.


Wait....?:what: I'm confused. All those strict gun laws and the bad guys STILL have access to firearms? So much so that the police have to permanently arm themselves?

What about the permanently disarmed citizens of Britain. WTF are they supposed to do?:uhoh::cuss::banghead:
 

Ss

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pkbites wrote:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iXuIroP8-ehxxmXZCND2TU90_UYwD9BGQVV00

London's police department said Friday that a new armed unit is carrying out regular sweeps of districts riven by gun battles between rival drug gangs.


Wait....?:what: I'm confused. All those strict gun laws and the bad guys STILL have access to firearms? So much so that the police have to permanently arm themselves?

What about the permanently disarmed citizens of Britain. WTF are they supposed to do?:uhoh::cuss::banghead:
BBBBAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!



Thats what they will do.
 

GoldCoaster

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And therein lies the rub.

The government there set up the law abiding gun owners to go through licensing, which became more and more stringent, until it turned into an outright ban on handguns and many long guns as well.

That's ok though, you won't need guns when nobody has them. Well unfortunately, and this is the same all over the world, the criminals don't voluntarily turn in the tools of their trade so that leaves a police force having to choose between wolves in sheeps clothing and the sheep.

The only people that wind up getting hurt by this is the sheep.

They need to rise up and get rid of all the twits that voted for this regulation, for the handing over of their sovereignty to Europe and clean house. (both of parliament and welfare leeches).
 

since9

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GoldCoaster wrote:
That's ok though, you won't need guns when nobody has them. Well unfortunately, and this is the same all over the world, the criminals don't voluntarily turn in the tools of their trade so that leaves a police force having to choose between wolves in sheeps clothing and the sheep.

The only people that wind up getting hurt by this is the sheep.

They need to rise up and get rid of all the twits that voted for this regulation, for the handing over of their sovereignty to Europe and clean house. (both of parliament and welfare leeches).
Precisely. Unfortunately, this very simple lesson in logic escapes anyone for whom fear and emotion displaces logic and sound reasoning.

For years psychologists have been saying that only between 4% and 10% of all humans even have the capability of being criminals, and that only about 2% to 3% are capable of inflicting violent crime. The rest of us have normally-wired brains which simply do not allow us to harm one another. It's a part of our evolutionary heritage, and it's good for ourselves because it's good for the group as a whole, and we humans are definitely pack animals.

Thus, if everyone were armed, the bad guys would be out-gunned from between 10:1 and 20:1.

Naturally, some of us don't want to be armed, so let's just say it's 1 out of 5 who're willing to accept that responsibility. That leaves the badguys outnumbered at least 2:1.

That's bad? How? Please tell me again, as I'm just not seing it...
 

saveyourself

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It upsets me when our second line of defence (the police)are the only ones who get the nice hardware. It's not as if they're on the scene whenit matters. I say, completely disarm the police:lol:then see who want's the people armed again.

UK for Open Carry:celebrate
 

Tomahawk

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saveyourself wrote:
It upsets me when our second line of defence (the police)are the only ones who get the nice hardware. It's not as if they're on the scene whenit matters. I say, completely disarm the police:lol:then see who want's the people armed again.

UK for Open Carry:celebrate

Like they say, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away!

UKOC, I like it. I fear it won't happen in my lifetime, but I like it. I was reading Dracula by Bram Stoker the other day and the men in the story in England were mostly armed with pistols as a matter of daily habit. 'Twas barely a hundred years ago...
 

Flyer22

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Tomahawk wrote:
saveyourself wrote:
It upsets me when our second line of defence (the police)are the only ones who get the nice hardware. It's not as if they're on the scene whenit matters. I say, completely disarm the police:lol:then see who want's the people armed again.

UK for Open Carry:celebrate

Like they say, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away!

UKOC, I like it. I fear it won't happen in my lifetime, but I like it. I was reading Dracula by Bram Stoker the other day and the men in the story in England were mostly armed with pistols as a matter of daily habit. 'Twas barely a hundred years ago...
Not to mention all the casual references to guns in the Sherlock Holmes stories. Even as late as the '60s, the British TV show The Avengers incorporated guns in the plots, even though it tended more toward martial arts than gunplay.
 

Old Grump

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saveyourself wrote:
It upsets me when our second line of defence (the police)are the only ones who get the nice hardware. It's not as if they're on the scene whenit matters. I say, completely disarm the police:lol:then see who want's the people armed again.

UK for Open Carry:celebrate
Recent statistics from Britain indicate that a citizen is attacked in their own home by a violent burglar once every 30 minutes. Those statistics, along with my thoughts on British gun control, the British ban on self defense, and what all this means for law-abiding British citizens, can be seen below: A householder is attacked by a violent burglar every 30 minutes. . . According to the BCS, householders came face-to-face with burglars in 20 per cent of domestic burglaries last year. . . Of the burglaries in which the victim came face-to-face with the intruder, violence was either used or threatened in 59 per cent of crimes. . . It was actually used in 40 per cent of cases. . . Tories estimated that householders came face-to-face with burglars in 57,000 – 20 per cent – of burglaries. . . Of these, 23,000 resulted in the burglar using violence against the householder.
We have that problem here too in many of our larger cities. Especially those with the strictest gun-laws. New York, Washington DC, Chicago, San Francisco and the list goes on.

Our advantage is our large independent group of people and our large rural population compared to yours. It's a little harder to keep us down because we keep sticking our heads up out of the mud and make ourselves heard. When the politicians do enough stupid things the sheep pay attention too. Not all of them but enough to make the pendulum of public opinion sway towards sanity.

 

old dog

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What are they supposed to do? They are supposed to keep still and die quietly. If they mattered or had anything to contribute they'd be cops or Labour hacks.

Britain's deterioration is one of the epic, untold stories of the last century. It is truly mind-boggling; a tragic example of national suicide.
 

saveyourself

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100% correct I'm sorry to say. I will add though, working people have never had much influence in this country. We've never had it good. This country was great for the rulers, it has never been great for ordinary people. When we had an Empire, we lost jobs.I have come to the conclusion the UK was once great because the rich rulers had plenty of stupid cannon fodder to do their bidding. Luckily some not so stupid people across the pond said NO to King George:cool:
 

UKexcop

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If I lived in the USA rather than the UK, where youare 3 times more likely to be murdered and 25 times more likely to be murdered with a firearm, I'd probably want to be armed too!

Fortunately our 'crazy' British laws mean that firearms homicides are almost exclusively committed by drug gang members against other drug gang members and almost never against an innocent member of the public. The idea that the British public are cowering, defenceless, terrorised by armed criminals is ludicrous. I'm slightly dubious about the numbers of people allegedly attacked by burglars in their homes. I only encountered a handful of cases like that in my 30 years as an officer.But, even accepting thatit is true, how many of those buglars were armed and how many of the victims were killed? Not many I suspect, unless there is some huge conspiracy not to report it in the press! How many peole are killed mistakenly each year by American citizens 'defending' their homes against unexpected delivery men and drunks who've gone to the wrong door? 2002 US statistics show that 59 children under the age of 4 were killed by firearms, 377 aged 5-14 also perished the same way. I think I'd swap British risks of encountering burglars for the risks to children of firearms kept in the home.


Iwas a uniformed patrol police officer from 1970 to 2000 in some busy places, including central London. I never felt the need for a firearm and never carried one on duty. Of course there is the need for a specialist armed unit to deal with the gun crime that does occur, but it is so rare that the overwhelming majority of British officers can and do safely patrol unarmed.

Of course, no law will completely prevent the carrying of firearms by criminals, but putting millions more of them into circulation is hardly likely to help improve things. The fact that some do still carry guns doesn't mean that the law doesn't work, any more than the huge number of homicides in the USA means that you should scrap the homicide laws as ineffective.

The open carry movement seems predicated on the idea that you can tell who is a responsible citizen and trust them to carry a firearm. Unfortunately, mental illness, personality disorders, drug and alcohol problems, jealousy, anger-management 'issues' and all sorts of other destabilising influences can be present without being sufficiently apparent to get someone classified as unfit to carry a gun. The two horrendous massacres in Hungerford, Berkshire and that of primary schoolchildren in Dunblane, Scotland, were committed by 'law-abiding' and 'responsible' gun club members. That prompted the tightening of restrictions that now help protect us from similar events. Worse massacres in the USA don't seem to have had the same effect.

Guns have been a part of the USA from its foundation and, given the number of them in circulation, I can't see how you could prevent them being a problem. In the UK there was some tradition of middle and upper-class 'gentlemen' carrying pistols, dating from before the foundation of a police force, but there has never been general carrying of guns in the UK in the same way as in the USA. The Avengers was fiction! All jolly good British fun, don't ya know, but hardly a realistic representation of life in the UK!

One last thought, how many US citizens who possess firearms are actually part of a 'well-regulated militia'? You must have a damned big army!
 

Grapeshot

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UKexcop wrote:
One last thought, how many US citizens who possess firearms are actually part of a 'well-regulated militia'? You must have a damned big army!
Your understanding and comprehension of our Second Amendment is so obviously lacking.

Read and learn of how and why the authors of our Declaration of Independence selected the wording they did. Our Supreme Court has affirmed this in the recent Heller decision.

BTW - how is that disarmament thing working out for Venezuela, Mexico or Angola. Didn't do well in Germany prior to WWII either, although that is where a lot of the anti-gun laws originate.

Yata hey
 

UKexcop

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Grapeshot wrote:
UKexcop wrote:
One last thought, how many US citizens who possess firearms are actually part of a 'well-regulated militia'? You must have a damned big army!
Your understanding and comprehension of our Second Amendment is so obviously lacking.

Read and learn of how and why the authors of our Declaration of Independence selected the wording they did. Our Supreme Court has affirmed this in the recent Heller decision.

BTW - how is that disarmament thing working out for Venezuela, Mexico or Angola. Didn't do well in Germany prior to WWII either, although that is where a lot of the anti-gun laws originate.

Yata hey
"Your understanding and comprehension of our Second Amendment is so obviously lacking." As, obviously, is your understanding and comprehension of irony and sarcasm!

I don't actually care about the other countries you mention. This is the section relating to other countries and, in this case, Britain. I was commenting on the use of firearms in the UK, which, with our laws, is extremely low. It works for us so I don't want to change it
 

Grapeshot

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UKexcop wrote:
I don't actually care about the other countries you mention. This is the section relating to other countries and, in this case, Britain. I was commenting on the use of firearms in the UK, which, with our laws, is extremely low. It works for us so I don't want to change it
Two most telling statements bolded above.

So if you or your family are faced with a life or death situation, you will do what?

Suggest that you read http://www.gunfacts.info/index.html as a beginning, but only if you are interested in looking at the other side.

Yata hey
 

saveyourself

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"It" doesn't work for me. If, in the admittedly rare event I needed to defend myself, my familyor my property from an attack that I am unable to repel with anything other than a firearm,I do not want an overbearing state denying methe tools.

I recently read the originalparliament debateabout our offensive weapon laws (by name and nature;)), the participantsof the debate actually wanted an assurance that someone arming themselves for defensive purposes,would not be prosecuted!! My jaw dropped when I realised how sensible our MPs (or was it Lords?) were in the not too distant past. So, was the legislation misinterpereted by those enforcing it, was the legislation drafted wrongly or wasParliaments sentiment ignored?



Here are the minutes http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1953/mar/26/clause-1-prohibition-of-the-carrying-of


A right to bear arms maybe? Admittedly, not specifically firearms.
 
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