On 07/01/2011 15:36, d wrote:
On Fri, 7 Jan 2011 07:23:36 -0800 (PST)
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.

On the contrary, I think that an innocent person being deliberately shot
without warning by the police is one of the most serious things that can
go wrong in a democracy.

There's a great difference between somebody being deprived of their life
by a deliberate act on the part of an agent of the state, and someone
being killed by the actions of a criminal.

With respect to the arming of the police, my preference would be for the
smallest possible number of guns to be around in Britain: if there's no
gun then there's no chance of anyone being shot by mistake. If more
police are using guns regularly, then there will be more shootings by
mistake.

See for instance http://www.sonomacountyfreepress.com...8_toomany.html

Apart from anything else, arming all the police "ups the ante" and makes
them more likely to be targets for criminals.
--
Jeremy Double {real address, include nospam}
Rail and transport photos at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmdoubl...7603834894248/