UK Police - Is 8 minutes an acceptable response time?

Sure, but there are always going to be police closer than 15 miles away in a city! Do you really think it would take anything like 10 minutes for your police to respond to a terrorist attack? What terrible city are you in?

 

If someone closes distance, you create more. That's as simple as self defense gets.

Earlier you said this:

People being murdered wouldn't have been considered by police as being REALLY bad?

 

If the policeman who was machete'd in the entrance to the House of Commons during the Westminster Bridge attack had been in possession of a gun he'd be alive right now. I simply don't understand this apparent resistance to being armed, especially these days.

 

"Close with?"

 

There is no name for it other than a general police are not armed policy. It is not a philosophy!
This is why I detest speculation, you have no idea why British police do not wish to be armed, you are just guessing, and it is not even a well informed guess.
The best way to kill a terrorist is with a tank,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...50-people-arish-sinai-peninsula-a7860596.html

 

What have I speculated on? I've just said that the UK police are unarmed because they think having a gun would escalate things. Is that not what its about? Why else would they not be armed?

So that's a YES then! I knew I'd get it out of you! (A tank being a very large gun!)

 

And there you go, since you think the police should be armed why not google what the police think. And no a tank is not just a big gun! But are you suggesting then we should have tanks in London, if not why not?

 

Most of us would hate to live in an American police state, everyone armed and murdering everyone else to pretend they have balls. Armed police mean dictatorship always have, always will.

 

The US has been under a constant dictatorship? I could've sworn that there was an election last year.

 

I have Googled before and I read that guns could unnecessarily provoke and escalate. Are you telling me that this is incorrect?

Do you need a hammer to kill an ant?

 

When did you last have a candidate who supports the mass of working people and had any serious chance of success? As you know, you live under a total capitalist dictatorship, and are too brainwashed by the McCarthyites even to notice, Duh.

 

Again the national average police response time to a 911 call is 10-11 minutes depending on which source you read. If you think they can magically respond faster to a shooting call if they know its "terrorism" than if they think it is shooting from a "home invasion" or "domestic disturbance" or a "gang" then you do not give our police enough credit. In addition, they also have to deal with positioning themselves and people running around mad screaming requiring them to be able to discern between the terrorists and the others. That happened in Sandy Hook because they were delayed by a person running around the school and they weren't sure if the person were a suspect or a victim. They do what they do, and they do it in the context of what their policies and procedures are, what the threats are, and what their situations on the ground are, not in accordance to internet political forum stopwatchers.

 

Historically the police have acted by consent, they were not a paramilitary force. One of the things you will find on this forum is how much fear americans have of the state, with some justification. After all the representatives of the state are armed in the US, they argue that if the state is armed the citizens should be armed, since the state is the greatest danger to individual freedom. Unlike many on the left I can see their point. If you are going to arm the police, I want to be armed to!
It appears to me, Aus has the worst of all worlds, an unarmed populace and an armed state.
So I will stick to our system and not try to tell other countries with other cultures how to do it.

 

LOL. Why do people think that I'm American? Your now the second person. I'm Australian. Anyway, what do you mean "support the mass of working people?"

 

In which case you will have, for a start, twice as many dying by gunshot as anywhere civilized. But, fairplay, remove your troops from the rest of the world and only decent people will care how you treat one another.

 

No Ned, I am British, I do not want to see general police armed, I am just trying to show that it is not a simple argument of give the police guns and problem solved.

 

Well, in the UK, the police have only acted by consent after a lot of them faced trial for various things, including murder . After some of their activities 'The Beau Gendarmes' got about thirty encores in London. and one trends to assume Australians have some knowledge of history. 'Support the mass of working people' means 'don't grovel to their thieving employers, even for big money'. It is rare nowadays, because of Murdoch and such. Couldn't you charge him with something and take him home?

 

Well, I seem to arguing with someone else then. Sorry.

 

Wait, are you saying that police should or should not respond quicker if they knew that a terrorist was killing multiple people in the street? Would an police officer really continue with a domestic violence case if they were a minute away from the attack? Surely in major cases such as a terrorist attack, officers would be called away from what they're doing wouldn't they? Thus, making the national average police response time irrelevant.

If a report came in saying: "There's someone shouting "Allahu Akbar" and killing everyone he see's" are you telling me that police wouldn't be able to discern between it being a terrorist attack or not? I think YOU are not giving YOUR police enough credit!

 

Yeah fair enough, but it seems that you have all but admitted that the incident in London would've highly likely been more quickly resolved if the general police had guns, considering that you didn't answer whether it is more effective to kill a terrorist with a gun or without a gun. And your tank argument... isn't an argument. (Considering that you let it drop after I hit you with the "killing an ant with hammer" comparison which you didn't respond to.)

 

You don't like him? What country are you in?

 

Ifs, but and maybe!
It was not worth responding to the hitting an ant with a hammer, you asked me which was the best way to kill a terrorist, I said a Tank! It is, but of course there are reasons why we do not have tanks on every corner just like there are reasons we do not have armed police on every corner! It is a bit more subtle why we do not have armed police, but the principle is the same.

 

If you think the police will come help you faster because someone is screaming "Allahu Akbar" than because someone is screaming "my husband is trying to kill me!!!" then I am not the one who is not giving the police enough credit

 

Yea, "Close with". Am I speaking another language?

In other words, they are less likely to try and take them into custody while they are still alive. That was the universal procedure until the last decade.

The advent of attackers wearing suicide vests and detonating when badly injured or being physically apprehended has pretty much ended law enforcement dealing with them as a typical violent incident.

More common now is to simply shoot them, then stand back and wait as they bleed out. Nobody wants to go in and try to give aid or handcuff them, only to be caught when they detonate themselves.

 

In a real knife attack you'll never see it coming. An attacker with a knife out can close 20 feet before you can unholster and fire if you're carrying.

Check out this video. The police at the end can't put distance between themselves and the attacker with a frickin car.



In the cases where people were murdered during the LA riots there were no police present. Pretty much the same case for any mass lawlessness.