Only the IRA has detonated regulated explosives in the UK.
Since the Good Friday agreement, occasionally peroxide based chemical reaction devices have detonated by extremists.
Are you still beating your wife, etc.
I seriously, seriously doubt that.
WTF is that supposed to mean? I am asking are they still undertaking a focus on a specific community now as they were doing 10 years ago, according to their own admission?
Welcome to 2004.
Hardly irrelevant—impractical or unsafe, both to manufacture or fire? Cumbersome and limited, even when functioning perfectly. Yes of course, and cheerfully acknowledged.
But the OP was asking about “difficulty” in acquiring one—and even a marginally better access option does count as moving away from “impossible.” Even if, y’know, only marginally.
And of course, as both the technology and access to it improve, that margin is going to keep crawling up.
(Besides, Zip Guns are, like, soooo '60s. Like, grody.)
No they normally used bombs for attacks on targets and firearms for internal discipline. They never sought open conflict with either the army or the police in order to kill as many as possible but if they had wanted to would they have chosen knives and vans or firearms? You know the answer to that one.
Why would it be any easier for ISIS/AQ than it was for the IRA? They certainly couldn’t source them in the UK (as you admit in your paragraph above, you know the IRA couldn’t either) and to do so needs a better run organisation than the loose collection of dissatisfied radicals we have here now.
How much more effective is a badly handled gun over a badly handled knife?
Whereas, as we all know, people simply stand and gawp when a man comes at you with a knife and they do simply stand there to be stabbed. :rolleyes:
And of course when you have a knife and your sacrificial lamb refuses to play ball and remain within arms reach, what do you do? whereas even a poorly handled gun is able to reach across a six foot gap and cause severe harm, quickly and repeatedly.
Do they dissipate faster than a bullet can travel? Or at the speed that a person can run? Because the latter one is all that needs to happen to keep you out of range of a knife.
I think you do know the area so you must know of the pubs and restaurants that provide enclosed spaces.
Don’t you think perhaps that the terrorists choose the targets according to the weapons and means they can muster? The more they kill the better. Bombs are a good choice for that, rapid-fire weapons will do the job too, knives however are a poor weapon choice to accomplish that.
When the initial ramming happened on the bridge the terrorist leaped out with knives. Are you saying that this was a choice made out of practicality and concern for the speed of police reaction rather than one made from difficulty of access to firearms?
Three people…eight minutes…seven dead. Some of those probably dead from the van impact or incapacitated and stabbed straight after. Let’s be generous and say three extra people were killed in that eight minutes by the terrorists. One each. Are you suggesting that if they had guns the death toll would have been lower? if so why?
If you accept it would have been higher, that that was their aim and that (by your own claim elsewhere) guns would easy for them to get…why did they choose not to use them? Explain the logic to me?
Did they sit in a huddle and decide
“yep, go with knives, that is the way we kill most people. Sure we’ve got guns at our disposal we can get them tomorrow no problem, it is easy-peasy to source them in the UK but when I leap out of that van after mowing down tens of people what I really need to finish the job is a sharp blade, what good would a gun be? At best I’ll have about five minutes to kill as many people as possible and a knife is the weapon for me…assuming they stay still and within arm’s reach of course but hey…of course they will!”
No they aren’t. The chemicals and materials required to make explosives are well known and unregulated. Should I choose to I can create an explosive fairly easily and and timing/detonation device with not much more effort.
Engineering even a simple gun is much more of a challenge, a semi-automatic is probably out of reach and even then you are going to have just as much of a problem sourcing or making the ammo.
The heavy regulation and traceability of firearms and ammunition in the UK makes it harder for people to acquire them, legally or illegally. Not impossible (and I expect the terrorists to use them at some point when the opportunity allows) but hard…and more risky than hiring a van, buying some knives or even fashioning a bomb.
I do feel these three men were not highly intelligent, and also were incapable of creating a coherent plan.
Sincerely, possibly your basic moron, ideal as cannonfodder: “K, my sons, go and do something, anything. You will be rewarded in Paradise.”
I agree, and anything which puts barriers in the way of their murderous intent is good by me. If they did think to themselves “guns are too hard to get” then it is highly likely that lives were saved because of it.