Which ones do? Just the ones around Parliament/Windsor/important stuff?
Yet another paraphrasing of a ‘Dune’ quote. And a good one at that.
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The ones who have guns are the authorised firearms officers that’ll be deployed as and when needed but they now pretty much have a permanent presence on the streets of london, being a priority target and all that.
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A lot of them are in London, but there are armed police all over the UK.
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I should have mentioned earlier:
My week in London was FREAKING GREAT. I could easily spend another week there, going to the museums I didn’t get a chance to check out, and would go back tomorrow if I had the vacation hours and my vacation fund jar wasn’t proverbially full of moths.
Don’t let today’s incident keep you from visiting London if you have the opportunity. The city has been through far worse, kept calm and carried on.
Edit: Really. Go.
The map on the OP identifies a building I was intrigued by, the “Portcullis House” right across the street from Parliament. It is a modern building, but has this really funky steampunk/Victorian vibe, especially the smokestack-festooned roofline.
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Portcullis House was where I received a ‘gift’ from one of London’s plentiful sky-rats when we visited in 2006. Thankfully, it happened as we were headed back to our accommodations, as I really needed a good shower to get it out of my hair. Ah, memories… 
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Here it comes…
edit: When our authoritarian overlord PM has to give a statement at 8:53pm on a wednesday night after a COBRA meeting one’s thoughts aren’t necessarily with the victims as they should be but what further civil liberties we’re about to sacrifice.
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Was just there last Friday night myself - walked right down that same sidewalk and around Parliament Building down past the Old Palace Yard across from Westminster Abbey
I even caught myself thinking about the exterior defenses and the gates that didn’t look strong enough to stop a determined terrorist with a car bomb of ramming into them.
Here’s a pic I took of Big Ben at night with a full moon off to the side. It’s basically directly across the street from today’s attack.
Also took a pic of the Lego Big Ben in the window at the Lego store in Leicester Square which was really cool.
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Heh! We were taking photos of the Lego displays earlier in the week. Geeks of a feather.
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Would not fuck with: https://theintercept.com/2017/03/22/witness-accounts-attack-british-parliament-london/
Heck, for an event like this, even if it was a deliberate rampage that didn’t get the “terrorism” label, it would barely make the news in the US. Just contextualizing it as a “terrorist” action (which is just assumed so far), it makes everything about it bigger and scarier.
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Intent is important. Accidents are terrible, but more or less random. This is another case of a person deliberately ramming pedestrians, then getting out and proceeding to stab people. There is probably a name for that kind of attack, but I have not heard.
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No, they don’t mess about i suppose and they’ve been heavily criticised for a supposed “shoot to kill policy”, not to mention the lies, cover-ups, obfuscation of certain high profile shootings. @Cynical has already mentioned jean charles de menezes but i would also add mark duggan, which kicked off the 2011 riots.
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Also - Colin Roach?
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Yeah. Plenty of questionable deaths in police custody unfortunately. I’m guessing he’s not on this list due to it being ruled a suicide. But again questionable because the evidence wasn’t by any means conclusive.
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The one I always remember for some reason is Harry Stanley:
tl;dr Scottish bloke living in London, on his way home with a table leg his brother had repaired in a plastic bag. Recovering from colonic cancer, he stops in a pub for a lemonade: someone there phones the police to report an Irishman with a shotgun in a bag.* Armed police challenge him not far from his door: when he turns to face them, they shoot him.
On the plus side, British police hardly ever shoot anyone, justifiably or not, so these things really stick out when they do happen.
* Textbook illustration of the problems with “see something, say something” and similar campaigns.
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Yes. This needs to go away. Aren’t these creepy posters all over london?
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But specifically, running over pedestrians followed by jumping out and stabbing them.
Such as today, and many others including- http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/GRAPHIC-IMAGES-East-Jerusalem-Arab-rams-car-into-ultra-Orthodox-Jews-then-stabs-them-423831
Don’t know about London, but I’m fairly sure I saw a couple at Edinburgh Waverley the last time I was passing through.
(Also one warning Pokémon Go players to stay off the tracks, which I suspect will probably save more lives.)
