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On the contrary Anon @ 5.37, terrorism is only a small part of the issue, albeit of higher profile at the moment. For years the police have had the proper function of their lawful work constrained by a one vociferous minority pressure group after another bleating about life not being perfect. Liberty, the IPCC, an element of vicious press feeding into an uncaring, ungrateful and unaware public.
It is police officers who are on the front line against criminals and terrorists, not the armed services - the same police officers who know that if they pull the trigger and shoot a terrorist or a criminal, the likes of Liberty et al will be crawling all over the incident to see if they can have the police officer prosecuted.
Well, those who think that that is an appropriate way to protect the law abiding citizens of Britain today, who also have the civil right to live in peace and freedom from criminal intimidation, try this. Set yourself a complex task with several choices of outcome, one of which is your own death, then give yourself no more than 0.5 of a second to decide what you are going to do. At best that is all the time a firearms officer has.
Too many people pontificating about things they have no experience of and don't have the courage to go and find out what it's really like at the coalface.