| Wiped said: No, you aren't quite right about this. In the UK, the police don't carry firearms, quite right. But that's not always the case - armed response teams are trained and are used occassionally for situations such as terror threats. Day-to-day police don't get guns, but the police in every area have one trained armed response unit in case of emergencies. Also, the uproar in the UK over that situation wasn't that guns were used, it was that a 'terrorist' was shot dead by armed police in the tube, in London (the 'subway'), and it turned out that he was innocent. I don't agree with guns, but both the UK and US are backwards in different ways. The UK's police should have guns, I think, and the US general population shouldn't. |
The bolded statement is incorrect... at least in part. I read several British journalism reports that heavily criticized the response *before* it was determined that the man was innocent, and at least one report was specific in mentioning that firearms should not have been used.
So while I agree that many citizens in the UK may not have found the use of firearms offensive, in at least one of the reports I read (and I believe it was two) the author was upset that firearms were used by the police. If you re-read my post, I said it had the UK media in an uproar over police use of firearms... I should have said it had some of the UK media in an uproar over police use of firearms. I didn't say it had the UK populous in an uproar. Sorry, I should have been more specific. I really didn't read any sort of man-on-the street interviews in those reports, so I would be just guessing at what the average Brit thought of that situation.
As far as having our "guardians/protectors/overseers" with guns, but we cannot have them (I assume this is what you mean), then I guess I have to disagree with you. The reason our founding fathers in the US put that in place was so that we would not become a helpless, defenseless society subject to the whims of a tyrannical government. Government of the people, by the people, and for the people is our way. 
If instead you mean to say that the UK government is and always will be completely and utterly trustworthy to never abuse power, and that Americans are too lawless or irresponsible to own firearms, then I say that the first is completely wrong and the second is somewhat wrong. Governments change and can never be trusted with absolute power, while we in America do have issues with much of our culture.
