This is the dystopian future that civil-liberty campaigners are most afraid of - a China-style mass-surveillance state.
This is so rich coming from the UK, the most CCTVed country in the world. Oh no, if we keep doing this insane-o shit we’ll become almost as bad as the image we made up about bad country Jyna.
The UK has cops walking around with ARs and full auto SMGs on the streets and train platforms and they’re crying about china lol
For context, Chinese cops are unarmed. This is fine because people in China don’t have guns.
As a tangent, I got reminded of someone saying that the presence of 50 000 guns in China proves that gun control always fails, completely ignoring the fact that China has a population of 1 400 000 000. That is a rate of 0.000036 guns per person. In comparison, the USA has more guns than people.
The London met are unarmed I think, at least the normal people.
Australia doesn’t have many guns and people that have them tend to be the most law abiding (even in terms of traffic offenses lmao) but our cops carry 3 torture implements, a glock, wear kevlar vests, and have a long gun in the car along with a few more torture implements.
It’s fucking terrifying. No idea why they think they need all that, I immediately feel unsafe every time I see one because they’re the only people armed with anything. Nobody even carries knives here, let alone pepper spray or guns.
Cops in china are not only unarmed but they are also friendly and helpful, from my experience anyway even as a dumb annoying westerner.
Completely different vibe from cops in imperial core
Most cops are unarmed in the UK. There’s just a detachment of armed ones in the busiest hubs in central London, closer to the queen and houses of parliament and all that.
As someone said, London Metropolitan Police (responsible for the 32 boroughs) is unarmed, but within London there’s ‘City of London Police’ for that specific area. They’re the guns.