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I don't find that particularly hard to believe. There's easily 20x more firearms per capita in the US than the UK. US police are routinely armed, while UK armed

I don't find that particularly hard to believe. There's easily 20x more firearms per capita in the US than the UK. US police are routinely armed, while UK armed police are only deployed where a firearm is believed to be involved. The abundance of firearms in the US means that police need to be ready for a potential firearms incident in every encounter with the public. Of course, the number of unjustified deaths will likely be disproportionately higher simply because all US police have the ability to react to a situation with lethal force. Sadly, as long as guns are as abundant as they are in the US, you'll never reduce that to the same level as the UK.

cs02rm0 10y ago
> UK armed police are only deployed where a firearm is believed to be involved That used to be true, with a few exceptions (e.g. airports). It's not the case today and increasingly firearms officers are armed on patrol routinely.
- akiselev 10y ago
  Why and when did this shift start? Was it because of the uptick in terrorism in Western Europe?
  - cs02rm0 10y ago
    For when - it was c.2009 London started having routine armed patrols I think (it's down to local forces in theory). Why is harder to answer. As a trend I don't think it's been directly related to terrorism. There have been no calls from the public for it and some typically quiet British grumbling at it. The cynic in me imagines politics has played a part. Getting hold of extra budget for policing is probably difficult at the moment but guns are probably an exciting enough reason to release funds. That said, they very much are using the latest incident in Berlin to push armed officers out onto the streets. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2440342/eleven-police-forces-to-send-out-anti-terrorism-police-to-tourist-hot-spots-to-prevent-uk-attack/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2440342/eleven-police-forces-t...

cs02rm0 10y ago

> UK armed police are only deployed where a firearm is believed to be involved That used to be true, with a few exceptions (e.g. airports). It's not the case today and increasingly firearms officers are armed on patrol routinely.

akiselev 10y ago
Why and when did this shift start? Was it because of the uptick in terrorism in Western Europe?
- cs02rm0 10y ago
  For when - it was c.2009 London started having routine armed patrols I think (it's down to local forces in theory). Why is harder to answer. As a trend I don't think it's been directly related to terrorism. There have been no calls from the public for it and some typically quiet British grumbling at it. The cynic in me imagines politics has played a part. Getting hold of extra budget for policing is probably difficult at the moment but guns are probably an exciting enough reason to release funds. That said, they very much are using the latest incident in Berlin to push armed officers out onto the streets. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2440342/eleven-police-forces-to-send-out-anti-terrorism-police-to-tourist-hot-spots-to-prevent-uk-attack/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2440342/eleven-police-forces-t...