That’s called being smart. No reason to fight animals on the ground when we have perfectly capable attack helicopters that are piloted by one man and can kill hundreds in seconds.
Complete and utter bungling from the Metropolitan Police allowed what should have been a minor scuffle in a borough of London to escalate into near anarchy the length and breadth of England, as it became clear that the Police were wholly unequipped to deal with a bunch of fifteen year old children smashing shit up :rolleyes:.
Greater Manchester saw massive rioting, arson and mob violence last night due to large numbers of Mancunian police being diverted to London to put down a mob that should have been dealt with decisively on the first night of the violence. Water cannon, rubber bullets, attack dogs and baton charges all should have been used immediately. Now the genie’s completely out of the bottle and nobody’s sure how to put it back in, other than diverting every riot police officer in the country to the scene of the violence.
Special mention to our moron Home Secretary. “Policing by consensus”. What the fuck does that even mean? Talk about fiddling whilst Rome burns, and they’re still pushing ahead with the cuts to the police. Unbelievable.
So, if the US doesn’t do anything stupid like allowing the riot to get out of hand for days before attempting to seriously put it down, then no, you probably won’t be seeing the same scenes in the US any time soon.
For now. That can change.
It was just as accurate to say that the US was “socially stable” and had avoided riots for 20 years before the Rodney King LA riots, but - oops, there goes LA. Except your assertion that there were no riots “for 20 years” is wrong. 1981 and 1983 are the only years since 1960 that didn’t have a riot in Wikipedia’s list, and given how spotty Wiki is, you can’t be sure 81 and 83 were all that peaceful.
Not to mention US rioters are more likely to be heavily armed than UK rioters, and past experience shows at least some of them will return fire rather than run.
Wikipeida’s history is far from comprehensive, but at least bother to look up something on the major riots of the 20th Century, Curtis, before you start blathering on about things you obviously know little to nothing about. Actually, just the 1960’s forward would be informative for you.
There have actually been quite a few mob attacks in the US this year, some of them resulting in dead victims.
The problems are much bigger than are being reported by the news. Large gatherings of disaffected people who aren’t being violent are being completely ignored by the media and politicians. Even smaller outbreaks of violence are not getting much play - each local area is noticing their problem(s), but not hearing about the ones elsewhere.
Then we get something like what’s going on in London and act all surprised. You know what? The writing IS on the wall, but we walk by with blinders on, refusing to see it.
Exchange of fire between rioters and riot police is still exceptionally rare in the United States, almost so rare as to be statistically irrelevant. Even during the Rodney King riots, look at the total number of rioters (obviously only vague estimates will exist), the total number of police deployed, and the total number of shooting incidents. Those shooting incidents are so exceptionally rare it’s a bit unrealistic to characterize the rioters in most American riots as being “better armed” as though that is statistically significant. By and large America has not had huge armed riots in which people go to war with the police, our rioters tend to throw things, break things, and use fists and other such things, not shoot people.
It’s spelled “teat”. And hey, nice caricature of the poor. What do you do for an encore?
Untrue - there was a man shot in a car in Croydon a few days ago who has died, and last night three young men apparently part of a neighborhood defense group were run over by a car. Those are just the ones I, an American with nothing more than crappy TV and internet coverage, are aware of, there might be more. This riot has caused deaths along with numerous injuries.
Good point. Rather, I would stock up on weapons upon moving to the United States in the first place. I would be a fool to share air with the likes of **Argent Towers ** without arming myself preemptively.
Lotta internet tough guys in this thread.
The socio-economic conditions set the scene. Squeezing the poor increases the tension. Then something sparks the initial unrest and when enough people get involved the police are overwhelmed and law and order break down - at which point it stops being about whatever started the riot and becomes a matter of taking advantage of the opportunity to loot and destroy. Half the people involved in any riot aren’t thinking beyond FREE STUFF! EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING IT!
The causes aren’t mysterious, it’s just that usually the spark to set things in motion doesn’t happen. Fixing the causes first requires that the ones benefiting from the current system acknowledge that it really does hurt the ones on the bottom, and then they would have to make changes in their comfortable lives in order to make the ones on the bottom less inclined to riot. One thing that will make it worse is to see this as an excuse to punish the ones on the bottom, squeezing them further, but societies have a distressing tendency to do that.
It doesn’t matter that the poor of London have a place to live and sufficient food and clothing, unlike many other poor people in history who have been worse off - they live side-by-side with wealthier people who have all kinds of stuff they poor of London will never be able to obtain by honest means, they are surrounded by advertising urging them to acquire all sorts of stuff they will never be able to get by honest means… and when the police are occupied two streets over with brick-throwing angry mobs why is it surprising that they’ll smash a store window and take?
Please. Characterizing this as the work of “15 year olds” is as much a simplification as calling all the rioters “sociopaths”. It conveniently makes the rioters “Them” or “Others”, not “Us”, and therefore drops empathy and lets people avoid really addressing the problem and pressures that leads to this. While there are certainly a lot of teens involved, looking at the video released shows plenty of full adults involved as well.
From what I’ve heard, the idea was to avoid killing people. That’s a laudable idea, really. Unfortunately, in this particular case that might not have been the best course.
Sure, they can up the force used. Is the British public willing to see a 15 year old kid lying in a pool of blood in the street as a result? Even with “non-lethal” force like water cannon, rubber bullets, dogs, and batons deaths can occur. Are you willing to accept more deaths as the price for using more force?
It’s up to the British people to make that choice.
Now THAT is stupid… but all too typical of politicians and so-called “leaders” these days. Which is why we’ll see more of this in the near future, and not just in London.
In 1967 in Detroit the US sent in the National Guard and the Army to put down a riot, along with tanks and machine guns. The fighting continued for two days after that. What do you suggest? Bombing?
Granted, that was 40+ years ago, but I don’t think people have changed that much in the intervening decades.
That’s because most people really aren’t interested in killing, or even hurting, random strangers. They’re much more interested in acquiring stuff.
There have been instances where riots were targeting people rather than material objects. They are less common. But they are also much uglier.
All of which makes your idea of mowing rioters down from minigun-equipped helicopters a bit over the top, don’t you think?
Especially since I don’t know of any major police force eqipped in such a way; that’s hard-core military hardware, and the military won’t be involved in riot suppression without martial law being declared.
That would be one fuggly scenario.
The overwhelming majority of those involved have been teenagers. I’m not sure where you’re getting your information from on these riots, but for those who actually live near where they’re happening, it’s pretty clear who the main instigators of this mess have been.
Yes, you can point to adults being arrested. This doesn’t change the fact that the riots are mostly a teenage (and younger!) phenomenon.
Is this satire? Yes, of course I’m willing to accept the potential deaths of rioters to maintain the Queen’s Peace. Why on Earth would I not be? As we’ve seen, the softly-softly stand off approach taken in London has been a disaster, allowing a riot to spread throughout the whole of the capital, sucking police officers into the capital from elsewhere, and leaving other British cities exposed.
No, it’s not satire, that was a serious question. If you’re willing to pay the price for using more force as far as I’m concerned that’s your opinion and stance. Now, what about everyone else in Britain? Are they accepting of that? If so, then go to it. Just be aware of the consequences of your proposed course of action.
Under the Insurrection Act of 1807 in response to a State of Insurrection the President may use Federal troops to quell it. This happened in 1967 when Michigan Gov. Romney (father of modern day Presidential candidate) declared such a state and Lyndon Johnson sent Federal troops to clear the streets of Detroit.
Sure, they are the only ones with guns. So they can shoot unarmed people at will.
No, not at all. The two most important responsibilities of any government are to protect its people from outside violent threat and to maintain civil order within its borders. These are the ancient reasons that governments were instituted; without civil order no other rights can meaningfully exist, and in response to violent insurrections and riots the rioters can no longer be viewed as part of society but instead as an active infection threatening all of society. Government must respond with immediate force in these situations.
When an infection starts in the body the immune system tries to stop it right away, sometimes the infection spreads and can do great damage before the immune system successfully kills off the infection. In the early stages of civil disorder more reserved methods such as riot police, tear gas, water cannons, mass arrests and things of that nature can be used and can be successfully used. However after a certain point, the government must act decisively to protect society as a whole.
You’re out of line here. Knock it off.