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Comment by codegladiator | Hacker News Reader

Genuine question, Are guns allowed in UK just in the same way as in US ? Also, is it so hard to come up with another way of secure communication if they ban whatsapp ?

edit: also, if i could have worded that better ?

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There's probably many alternatives to Whatsapp, if you need them...

Regarding guns, no. Even police officers don't have them.

Some UK police officers most certainly do have access to firearms - for example airports generally have fairly heavily armed officers patrolling about:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_unit

That’s incorrect. There are over 5000 Authorised Firearms Officers (AFO’s) in the UK.

Sure, but your local street-patrolling officer does not have a gun with them. There might be one locked in their car but your ordinary policemen don't carry weapons.

They don't have guns in the car. Only trained police officers are allowed to use firearms.

Why aren’t all cops trained to use firearms?

Because not all cops are up to the job.

If the US is any example, it is the worst-trained scaredy-pants who walk up to every traffic stop with their hand on the holster, and the cops most "up to the job" who are willing to engage suspects with words, time, and humanity.

- Not all officers are capable of ending another human's life

- Not all want that responsibility, even if they don't routinely have to carry

- It's expensive to train them

Criminals rarely have guns in the UK so enforcing the law with firearms is not usually necessary.

I think there are also philosophical reasons why the British people aren't keen on the further militarisation of the Police, especially routine patrols.

It's traditionally been the job of the Police to uphold the law with the consent of the People.

It's the job of the Military to extend the will of the Politicians by bringing violence to enemies of the State.

By further militarising the Police, it implies the People (or sections of) have become enemies of the State, which is not a great situation to be in... also this is why a lot of British people consider US Police Departments to be insanely trigger-happy.

Because armed response is rarely necessary.

That is if you ban guns.

Well, yes. Although they're not entirely banned, only handguns are banned. Shotgun licenses and hunting licenses are fairly readily available.

because it's not necessary, and not even a third of UK police even want to carry guns themselves.

We have specialist armed police units for times when weapons are required, and most of the time they are not.

We do have armed police but they're on specialist deployment - you see them at events (also at ports of entry). They deploy relatively often in my area I assume they're attending drugs busts.

Regular police carry tear gas spray (or perhaps pepper spray?) and tazers as a matter of course.

Saying "police don't have them" is a bit misleading.

Assault weapons were also banned in France. Guess what the terrorists used in the couple of major attacks against France?

This policy of banning end-to-end encryption is beyond stupid. They won't stop a single terrorist from using end-to-end encryption.

But I think they know this, too. They just don't want everyone else's conversations to be secret either.

To take your example further, rented trucks have also been used for killing people, so logically, trucks should be banned since criminals have used those.

rented trucks and some firearms have viable uses (e.g. pest control, sport etc.)

automatic weapons have no civilian use case

Why is "sport" not a legitimate use case for automatic weapons but it is for other ones?

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