On Jan 6, 10:02*pm, sutartsorric wrote:
On Jan 6, 9:16*pm, "DB." wrote:

* * Railway stations across London have been put on high alert amid
fears of a terrorist attack on transport hubs.

More at:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...-uk/8244622/Tr...
orhttp://tinyurl.com/36qnwqb

--
DB.

I wonder how they think this will prevent a determined suicide bomber
from detonating themselves?

Or maybe in their security scenario bombers always carry the
explosives in rucksacks in order to be easily identified.

If a uniformed presence discourage one islamist from killing one
person is that not worth the effort?

On Jan 7, 1:59*pm, 1506 wrote:
On Jan 6, 10:02*pm, sutartsorric wrote:





On Jan 6, 9:16*pm, "DB." wrote:

* * Railway stations across London have been put on high alert amid
fears of a terrorist attack on transport hubs.

More at:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...-uk/8244622/Tr...
orhttp://tinyurl.com/36qnwqb

--
DB.

I wonder how they think this will prevent a determined suicide bomber
from detonating themselves?

Or maybe in their security scenario bombers always carry the
explosives in rucksacks in order to be easily identified.

If a uniformed presence discourage one islamist from killing one
person is that not worth the effort?

And if they kill a Brazilian electrician?

Robin

On 07/01/2011 13:02, bob wrote:
On Jan 7, 1:59 pm, wrote:
On Jan 6, 10:02 pm, wrote:





On Jan 6, 9:16 pm, wrote:

Railway stations across London have been put on high alert amid
fears of a terrorist attack on transport hubs.

More at:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...-uk/8244622/Tr...
orhttp://tinyurl.com/36qnwqb

--
DB.

I wonder how they think this will prevent a determined suicide bomber
from detonating themselves?

Or maybe in their security scenario bombers always carry the
explosives in rucksacks in order to be easily identified.

If a uniformed presence discourage one islamist from killing one
person is that not worth the effort?

And if they kill a Brazilian electrician?

Robin

This was a terrible case, but the fact is that honest people made a
ghastly mistake.

On Jan 7, 3:09*pm, Martin Edwards wrote:
On 07/01/2011 13:02, bob wrote:





On Jan 7, 1:59 pm, *wrote:
On Jan 6, 10:02 pm, *wrote:

On Jan 6, 9:16 pm, *wrote:

* * *Railway stations across London have been put on high alert amid
fears of a terrorist attack on transport hubs.

More at:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...-uk/8244622/Tr...
orhttp://tinyurl.com/36qnwqb

--
DB.

I wonder how they think this will prevent a determined suicide bomber
from detonating themselves?

Or maybe in their security scenario bombers always carry the
explosives in rucksacks in order to be easily identified.

If a uniformed presence discourage one islamist from killing one
person is that not worth the effort?

And if they kill a Brazilian electrician?

This was a terrible case, but the fact is that honest people made a
ghastly mistake.

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.

Robin

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.

B2003

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

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/

On Jan 7, 3:36*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.

B2003

Except that in the case of the Brazilian electrician, if that had been
the choice for the security services they should have intercepted him
before he travelled on two separate buses during his journey to
stockwell underground.

Unless of course they are so clever that they 'know' that potential
bombers are only going to explode themselves on sub-surface transport.

On Jan 7, 12:59*pm, 1506 wrote:
If a uniformed presence discourage one islamist from killing one
person is that not worth the effort?

Depends how many uniforms it takes, and how much crime is permitted
^H^H^H paperwork is left un-done by them not being elsewhere

AE

On Jan 7, 12:59*pm, 1506 wrote:
On Jan 6, 10:02*pm, sutartsorric wrote:



On Jan 6, 9:16*pm, "DB." wrote:

* * Railway stations across London have been put on high alert amid
fears of a terrorist attack on transport hubs.

More at:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...-uk/8244622/Tr...
orhttp://tinyurl.com/36qnwqb

--
DB.

I wonder how they think this will prevent a determined suicide bomber
from detonating themselves?

Or maybe in their security scenario bombers always carry the
explosives in rucksacks in order to be easily identified.

If a uniformed presence discourage one islamist from killing one
person is that not worth the effort?

In Western Europe the chances that a terrorist attack will be Islamic
is small.
There have been numerous terrorist attacks in Ireland, for example, in
2010 that had nothing to do with any religion except Christianity -
and even then only in a tribal way.