[phreenet]

I hear this a lot, but if I'm not mistaken other law enforcement organizations in other European nations with equally strict gun laws and a citizen culture of not wanting guns have armed police. While traveling into Germany, getting off the plane in Frankfurt I'm greeted by Polizei carrying full auto capable sub-machine guns (mostly HK MP5s, some HK G36Ks). Even in America it's rare to see police open carrying anything more than a pistol and I've never traveled through an airport and seen weapons like that either, including Airports at our nations capital (Dulles to be exact).

[_bxg1]

There's a difference between SWAT or border patrol and regular cops on the street. They still have SWAT teams in the UK, they just acknowledge that the times you need to go in guns-blazing are the exception to the rule.

[tialaramex]

The UK doesn't really have SWAT. Ordinary people are most likely to see firearm officers with an MP5SF or similar, a black semi-automatic carbine, which a typical civilian probably mentally files as a "machine gun like in a movie" and its main purpose is to act as a visible deterrent and set them apart from "ordinary" unarmed police officers.

Many officers armed with the expectation they might need to actually shoot somebody, not just act as a deterrent have Glocks, because a pistol is the right tool for this job, and they may have also been trained to use a military-style shotgun. But that's about as far as it goes.

If the bad guys have a rocket launcher, in the UK the expectation is that this is now a problem for the Army, not some nutjob with a badge who thinks Judge Dredd is a role model rather than a satire.