On Jan 7, 4:36*pm, wrote:
On Fri, 7 Jan 2011 07:23:36 -0800 (PST)

bob wrote:
I don't dispute that mistakes happen, but that is exactly my concern:
another mistake might happen. *The OP asked, "If a uniformed presence
discourage one islamist from killing one person is that not worth the
effort?" *I would have to say no. *I do not believe the risk of
another terrible mistake is worth taking for the hope that lots of
uniforms and guns at railway stations might perhaps deter a bad person
from doing a bad thing.

If its a choice of one civilian dying because of a mistake or dozens dying
because of a bomb the choice is a no brainer. Anyway , I don't see what
your problem is - almost every other country in the world has armed police
as the norm, even fluffy liberal sweden.

But the specific question posed by the OP was about *one* person being
saved. I can't help but feel that we would be more likely to save
*one* person if we used the money being spent on this particular
counter terrorism measure on some sort of road safety project (anybody
have the current DfT figure for cost per life saved used in evaluating
road safety projects to hand?).

While there are plenty of armed police in many countries, because
police being armed in the UK is not normal, the perception when there
are armed police about in the UK is that they are more likely than
your average Swedish beat bobby to use those arms. Given that the
presence is abnormal, the police command structure is likely to be
under abnormal load, conditions which would make mistakes far more
likely.

Robin