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How Britain has been kept safe for a decade

bbc.co.uk

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Re: How Britain has been kept safe for a decade

#51

Post by PaulKeeble »

realusername wrote: post #35

I expected much more from the BBC than some stupid "our intelligence is better you see !!" article. No it's not the intelligence which prevented anything, it's the fact that strategically, the UK is a much less desirable target than France. No amount of intelligence could have prevented what happened in Nice and Paris and saying the opposite is trying to rewrite history.

I assume that its plausible to put in place policies such that terrorist attacks can be much reduced, but that wouldn't be a modern western country any more and indeed the level of repression required would inhibit a countries function so dramatically that it would likely create more terrorists in the long term.

Re: How Britain has been kept safe for a decade

#52

Post by sevenless »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #50
sevenless wrote: post #7

Touch a big fucking piece of wood with that title, BBC. Guns are much rarer in the UK than on the continent. This obviously doesn't make attacks impossible but it does make life harder for terrorists. For example, the maniac who murdered Lee Rigby with a knife tried to get a gun first. All he could get was a modified starter pistol that jammed on the first shot. The right wing terrorist who murdered Jo Cox apparently…

Take a look at the homicide data alongside gun crime and none of the law changes that reduced gun ownership in the last 50 years has made any noticeable difference to the correlation. As you go around the world and you look at the number of guns per populace the rates of homicide using them vastly differs, Norway isn't a violent place nor does it have a lot of gun crime but it has a lot of guns. There is plenty of au…

> Norway isn't a violent place nor does it have a lot of gun crime but it has a lot of guns

Er. Do you know what Anders Breivik did in 2011? You're also shifting straight from 'terrorism' to 'homicide', although they are not the same thing.

> none of the law changes that reduced gun ownership in the last 50 years has made any noticeable difference to the correlation.

How do you explain this then?

http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/561817dbbd86ef195c8...

> There is plenty of automatic weapon use in the UK, there doesn't appear to be serious problems with smuggling guns in

Except that I've given several examples where extremely well motivated 'bad guys' were unable to get anything beyond rudimentary home made pistols and were consequently unable to kill large numbers of people. Long may it stay that way, despite gun nuts who wish otherwise.

> there is no sport use or recreational use at all.

This is also untrue. About 1% of the population are licensed gun owners, mostly for shotguns in rural areas. Hunting for sport is wide spread. Sports target shooters can use shotguns, rifles and long barrelled .22 pistols.

Re: How Britain has been kept safe for a decade

#54

Post by simbalion »

sevenless wrote: post #7

Touch a big fucking piece of wood with that title, BBC. Guns are much rarer in the UK than on the continent. This obviously doesn't make attacks impossible but it does make life harder for terrorists. For example, the maniac who murdered Lee Rigby with a knife tried to get a gun first. All he could get was a modified starter pistol that jammed on the first shot. The right wing terrorist who murdered Jo Cox apparently…

Banning guns from citizens doesn't make life harder for terrorists. There was a video last year of an ISIS person beheading someone using a large knife, on a city street in broad daylight as pedestrians walked by on the other side of the street, powerless to do anything to stop the atrocity taking place in front of them.

In many places in the United States, if someone tried to cut someone's head off in broad daylight on a city street, that terrorist would probably get shot dead, maybe before committing the act. That makes life harder for terrorists.

The problem with gun control debates and conversations about violence in the atmosphere of gun control debates is that 1/2 of the people talking have lost their f'ing minds.

Violence is a problem unrelated to the prevalence of weaponry and violent people will always find weapons to use. Guns are an equalizer that empower the weak to stand up against the strong.

Re: How Britain has been kept safe for a decade

#55

Post by simbalion »

Kurtz79 wrote: post #44

I would be very careful in publishing such "pat-in-the-back" articles. I remember reading a NYT article shortly after the Paris attacks that said something like "this could never happen in the US" (because of better intelligence and integration), and then the San Bernardino shootings happened soon after and the Orlando shooting later... (found it: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/opinion/could-paris-happen... ) Whil…

regarding the shootings, "gun free zones" are actually "safe for terror zones" and should be referred to as such.

Re: How Britain has been kept safe for a decade

#56

Post by jacquesm »

interfixus wrote: post #37
jacquesm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's pretty clear Nice was a terrorist attack. What was the goal of the 'terrorist' then? In other words, what political aim did he have?

Hm ... yes, let's see, what possible goal might he have had? What conceivable purpose could indiscriminate mass murder in a major European city serve? I'm certain noone ever attempted such a thing before. Equally certain they didn't claim allegiance to any particular, you know, religion or anything like that. No pattern to see here, move along.

> What conceivable purpose could indiscriminate mass murder in a major European city serve?

Yes, that's the question.

> I'm certain noone ever attempted such a thing before.

I'm aware of that.

> Equally certain they didn't claim allegiance to any particular, you know, religion or anything like that.

I'm aware of that too.

Even so, none of that actually answers the question, it's just a bunch of handwaving and suggestion making it seem that you're a really smart person who has figured all this out.

So, humor me, what did this guy want? How do you know that's what he wanted?

I've been reading quite a bit about this particular incident and so far the only thing that is certain is that this was one very confused individual who had been under treatment for some time (years) and who happened to be very loosely affiliated with Islam, no more than someone who still celebrates Christmas is a Christian.

If you're aware of something rather stronger in the evidence department then please let's have it.

Re: How Britain has been kept safe for a decade

#57

Post by sevenless »

simbalion wrote: post #54
sevenless wrote: post #7

Touch a big fucking piece of wood with that title, BBC. Guns are much rarer in the UK than on the continent. This obviously doesn't make attacks impossible but it does make life harder for terrorists. For example, the maniac who murdered Lee Rigby with a knife tried to get a gun first. All he could get was a modified starter pistol that jammed on the first shot. The right wing terrorist who murdered Jo Cox apparently…

Banning guns from citizens doesn't make life harder for terrorists. There was a video last year of an ISIS person beheading someone using a large knife, on a city street in broad daylight as pedestrians walked by on the other side of the street, powerless to do anything to stop the atrocity taking place in front of them. In many places in the United States, if someone tried to cut someone's head off in broad daylight…

Why do you think that terrorist (I assume you're talking about the London guy) would be trying to cut someone's head off if he were in the USA? As I pointed out, he bought a gun and tried to use it FIRST, which very thankfully didn't work. The knife was not his first choice. He'd certainly have preferred an AR15.

But don't listen to me. Listen to Al Qaeda.

> A video from 2011 has resurfaced showing American-born al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn discussing how easy it is to buy guns in the United States and urging fellow radicals to do so.

> "America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms," said Gadahn, "You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background check, and most likely without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?"

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/11/politics/al-qaeda-video/in...

> violence is a problem unrelated to the prevalence of weaponry

Isn't this a bit like saying that soldering is unrelated to the prevalence of soldering irons?

Re: How Britain has been kept safe for a decade

#58

Post by DanBC »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #3

Would joined up intelligence really prevent the lone lunatic attack? If so how?

You monitor people who download certain material. You then see if they apply for passports or buy tickets to Syria (or the gateway countries to Syria). You then monitor them to see if they buy knives, guns, fertiliser / etc. You also monitor them to see if they're talking about their plan to kill people (because so far most of these attacks seem to have had some planning in semi-public fora.)

To me this list is scary, and we should resist governments that ask for these powers. But currently this is at the mild end of what UK gov is asking for (and doing). They'd go much further in their human rights violations.

As an example of some intrusive monitoring, and other measures, that were aimed at stopping radicalisation of a family, and preventing a child from flying to Syria: https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/judgments/london-borough-tower-...

This case in interesting because they could have used "joint enterprise" to convict the family, but chose not to. (A good thing, joint enterprise is linked to many miscarriages of justice).

Re: How Britain has been kept safe for a decade

#59

Post by DanBC »

zimbatm wrote: post #5

> Forty terrorist plots have been disrupted since 2005 (in Britain) - including seven in the past 18 months. Does anyone know where these numbers come from? Are the information to the individual cases available?

They need to define "terrorist plot".

Does a 15 year old child travelling to Syria count as a terrorist plot? Because some of those people have been stopped. (although plenty of others haven't).

Does it count as a terrorist plot if there's almost no chance of it being successful? Grooming someone with a learning disability to kill someone seems unlikely to actually be successful. Here's one such plot that got stopped: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/30/eight-years-...

It would be good if UK Gov released some better information. That's unlikely to happen.

Re: How Britain has been kept safe for a decade

#60

Post by DanBC »

jacquesm wrote: post #56
interfixus wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm ... yes, let's see, what possible goal might he have had? What conceivable purpose could indiscriminate mass murder in a major European city serve? I'm certain noone ever attempted such a thing before. Equally certain they didn't claim allegiance to any particular, you know, religion or anything like that. No pattern to see here, move along.

> What conceivable purpose could indiscriminate mass murder in a major European city serve? Yes, that's the question. > I'm certain noone ever attempted such a thing before. I'm aware of that. > Equally certain they didn't claim allegiance to any particular, you know, religion or anything like that. I'm aware of that too. Even so, none of that actually answers the question, it's just a bunch of handwaving and suggest…

> and who happened to be very loosely affiliated with Islam

That's similar to lots of the terrorists who've been caught. They tend to be converts to Islam, or previously not particularly observant before being radicalised.

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