Posted on 08/09/2011 1:46:54 PM PDT by Hojczyk
Officers accused of inaction as looting mobs go wild Cameron leads calls for more robust policing Top Yard commander: 'We need to do more for London' All able-bodied officers and special constables called in Plastic bullets would be used for first time 'if deemed necessary'
Shopkeepers joined an increasing chorus of voices today demanding to know what the police were doing as swathes of London descended into chaos last night.
Business owners accused police of adopting a softly-softly approach which left their shops and businesses vulnerable to attack by baying mobs.
While police were criticised in some quarters for being far too slow to get to riot scenes, officers were accused by shopkeepers in Hackney of standing just yards away from looters as windows were smashed and armfuls of goods were scooped up.
Cypran Asota, who has run the Boots opticians for 25 years, told the London Evening Standard how he watched as the shop was destroyed.
More...
Surrender! Powerless police let the mob seize the streets, looting shops and starting fires in their wake
London burns at hands of the mob as the PM finally flies home: Gangs armed with petrol bombs and poles on THIRD night of riots and cynical looting
Centuries of business up in flames: The family-run furniture shop razed to the ground by rioters' fire
We ran for our lives as thugs ambushed bus: Chaos across the capital as orgy of violence rages on
London-born Ferdinand calls for Army to patrol riot-torn streets of the capital
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
This could be just the job for all of the out of control SWAT teams in the US.
Don’t look now, but the Muzzies generally aren’t the ones rioting. If fact, in this, they have been a force for order. Which is not to say they don’t bring their own problems (as you could guess I would think from my tagline). It’s just that this time, they aren’t the problem.
Multiculturalism brings with it the opportunity for a diversity of problems, not just the one originating from Mecca.
Obviously, don’t be “soft” or “safe”.
I think those who have lined up with garden implements have shown how even a little show of resistance is a huge deterrent.
Naturally, Brits aren’t allowed to have guns!
“The British did not destroy the donated weapons.”
From a 2002 National Rifleman.....
As with virtually all rifles and handguns, those likely few remaining guns sent to England in its time of desperate need have been confiscated and destroyed.
I hope the article is incorrect. Do you have links to the contrary?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/650257/posts
The rioters arent Muslim.
They are black youth/adults from the Caribbean community, and white yobs. They have in fact smashed Islamic banks and attempted to smash a mosque, Muslims in fact have chased these rioters off in parts of London and elsewhere.
Hi, I have done abit of research and.......
The fate of of the US civilian donated weaponry is obscure -with the overwhelming likelihood that it was mostly simply smelted for scrap metal as part of the war effort.
Almost no “donated” weapons have ever appeared with British service markings, less for some Colt & S&W handguns and - possibly - some .22” rifles.
Unfortunately, most US discussion & historical forums remain blinded by the myths and legends of the time, as the one you posted, and we have to unpick these myths:
The main myth is that UK was “defenceless and unarmed after Dunkirk” in terms of small arms.
The BEF is thought to have lost somewhere between 40,000 to 90,000 rifles (current estimates and my own deduction are that it was less than 60,000). While this is a large number, it is actually insignificant when you consider that, going into WW2, UK had about 2 million rifles in store.
Although some of these 2 million were dispersed about the Empire and RN on station, this figure does not even include the large stocks in India and Australia, which both had manufacturing facilities for the service rifle (the No1 MkIII at that time).
Whilst there were initial shortages of MGs, these had largely been replaced by the end of the “invasions scare” period in September 1940.
The British Army and its immediate reserves were never short of service rifles; as evidence, UK had c.200,000 unused .303” P14 rifles in store left over from WW1. These P14s were never used by regular forces, other than in some basic training camps.
Winston’s appeal for arms arose from his idea to arm civilian households ahead of invasion, and it of course was extremely clever propaganda on his part, designed to tug at the heartstrings of neutral Americans. In reality, there was no prospect of receiving any such arms in time. It is very likely that, even during the “invasion scare” period of June to September 1940, UK authorities probably understood that the Germans had no realistic hope of a successful invasion attempt, and that the scare was used to simply complete the mobilisation of the nation.
UK dusted off its WW1 economic war plan, which indicated that the armed forces would peak at about 5 million over 5-6 years - based on UK demographics and war production history.
Hence a requirement was established to procure c. 5 million new rifles (in WW1 UK had 5 million men pass through the ranks, had built 4.2 million rifles, of which about 2.5 million survived the war. Half a million rifles were scrapped or stripped during the 1920s, leaving the 2 million in store).
The immediate requirement in 1940 was not for the regular army - who had plenty of rifles - but for the (renamed) Home Guard. There were about 3 million WW1 veterans still alive in Uk in 1940, and it was thought that these would all be armed as Home Guard. Hence the appeal for US military rifles - the .30-06 M17s and M1903s.
As things turned out, only about a million Home Guard were raised and armed with US weapons. UK fought 1940-43 with its No1 rifles, then re-equipped its armies in Europe with the No4 rifle, of which 4 million had been built. The No1 rifles were sent to bolster stocks in India and Australia (still making their own rifles), the Empire and as military aid to allies. The unplanned (in 1940) advent of the Sten and its c.4 million units helped create a vast surplus of rifles.
The fate of the civilian donated arms to UK is extremely unclear. By the time they arrived, the invasion scare was over, and the idea of arming civilians had been cancelled.
Few of the donated arms would have been of any use in the standardised military supply chains, because of multiplicity of calibres, models and condition.
Pistols in useful calibres were used - including non-military calibres for special forces and other tasks. Quite a lot of Winchester .22” rifles ended up being used for training purposes, but its not clear whether these were “donated” or simply purchased new on contract.
So given that the donated arms have never surfaced, its most likely that they went to the smelter in 1940/41.
So they at least helped Britain in its war effort. They certainly were NOT ‘thrown in the sea’ in 1945....
You might want to check out this source:
http://www.guncite.com/journals/okslip.html
“Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s book Their Finest Hour details the arrival of the shipments. Churchill personally supervised the deliveries to ensure that they were sent on fast ships, and distributed first to Home Guard members in coastal zones. “
“Guns that had been donated by American civilians were collected from the Home Guard and destroyed by the British government.[83] Footnote 83 points to:
“See London Public Records Office, Home Office 45, 21888. See also Bray, supra note 80; William R. Tonso, Gun and Society: The Social and Existential Roots of the American Attachment to Firearms 125 (1982).”
This document seems extremely well footnoted and recalls events as I have read them defined from many other sources. I believe they WERE used for home defense, and they WERE picked up and destroyed at the end of the war.
Thank you for the replies. Apparently either way, the weapons were destroyed.....very said.
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