Quote from The Irate Pirate on August 10, 2011, 4:53 pm

msleeper wrote:

I keep telling my eurofriends that the reason there wouldn't be looting like this over here is because store owners are armed and will defend their property. But as for the police being ineffectual, I'm just shocked their not using beanbag or rubber ammo, or way more tear gas, or one of those insane sound cannons they used at G20 to disperse protesters. In all of the videos I've seen, they just stand in front of things and watch while the rioters burn cars and other buildings or go looting nearby. And when pressed, they flee.

I think the notion that police should bare-fist brawl criminals is insane at best, and I get that you are trying to be nationalistic and say the UK is better than the US because you don't have gun crime or whatever - but that's irrelevant. They should be protecting themselves as well as stopping the people doing the looting. Getting into the fray is putting them unnecessarily in harm's way when they could use shotguns with beanbag ammo to stop the looters in their tracks.

I was being sarcastic about the bare knuckled fighting thing, I wasn't saying "herp derp we don't have any gun crime therefore we are better than the US". I was just saying these riots would be hell of a lot worse if there was easy access to firearms on both sides, instead of people smashing up buildings it would be true anarchy. If the shopkeepers had access to weapons, then likewise the banditos would too, it would be escalation.

We need many more police cavalry, I live near a training centre for riot horses and they are intimidating as hell, yet there aren't enough of them. A baton charge on them would disperse any nutty crowd on the planet not armed to the teeth.