“While British officials have long since accepted that an attack is ‘highly likely,‘” nbcnews.com reports, “they believe that intelligence-gathering and stronger links with the community — rather than gun-toting cops — will do more to keep the city safer.” I believe that’s what’s called a “false dilemma” . . .
“A false dilemma is a type of informal fallacy in which something is falsely claimed to be an “either/or” situation,”according to wikipedia.org, “when in fact there is at least one additional option.”
In this case, the United Kingdom could arm her police force and restore British subjects’ natural right to armed self-defense.
As we’ve reported time and time again, gun rights restoration is so far removed from political discourse in The Land of Hope and Glory it’s not even mentioned. It should have been a defensive gun use? You must be joking mate!
What we get instead is irony-oblivious comments from “the authorities” along these lines, promoted and parroted by anti-gun rights media orgs like NBC on this side of the pond:
“In a free and democratic society, there is going to be a balance between democracy, freedom and openness, and a police state — and none of us want to live in a police state,” said Brian Dillon, former head of the Met’s firearms command who now runs the counterterrorism consultancy Rubicon Resilience.
“Therefore at some point some attacks are regrettably going to hit home, that’s inevitable,” he added. “Not everything can be stopped.”
For one thing, the UK is a police state. Not only is it the most surveilled nation on planet earth, Her Majesty’s Government has removed her subjects’ absolute right to remain silent during police interrogation.
For another, just as the UK government has a vested interest in keeping its population disarmed to maintain the status quo, Mr. Dillon has a vested interest in making sure there’s a healthy (until it isn’t) market for his “counterterrorism consultancy.”
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that his “sh*t happens in a disarmed society” comment reveals a callous disregard for human life. Here’s another example of that POV from the article:
In August last year, when a teenager suffering an episode of paranoid schizophrenia killed an American tourist in a busy London street, armed police rushed to the scene but not a single bullet was fired.
They were able to subdue the attacker, Zakaria Bulhan, using a stun-gun. And no one else, bar 64-year-old American Darlene Horton, who had already been stabbed to death, was hurt.
If we lose one American tourist because of civilian disarmament, it’s worth it! You know; to maintain our “gun free” paradise.
Note to the Brits: it stops being worth it when it starts being you. Know what I mean?