[version_five]

From what I can remember, it's an everyday occurrence in various european cities to see police armed with machine guns. The first time I saw it it was very surprising and I wondered what was going on. Definitely not a uniquely american thing.

[ben_w]

Indeed, but the UK in particular is one of the few places where police aren't routinely armed, and yet my aforementioned experience in some of the London airports…

[philipwhiuk]

The reason is that we have very few armed police and not that many police and you often (comparatively) want police with arms at an airport, so suddenly the only police at airports are the armed ones and they have the most lethal kit.

The dispatch time for armed police has gone up because they are doing a regular police job, while armed, rather than waiting for the call up.