Apparent attacker on the London Bridge sidewalk
Image: LNP/Daily Mail
As reported by various outlets, at about 2 PM local time today a man had stabbed several people (4 or 5, depending on whose report you go by) in the London Bridge area in London, UK. The man used a seemingly large knife with the blade at whose length I'd estimate at at least 12 cm (5 inches) to perpetrate this attack. He also wore what later turned out to be a fake suicide belt.
The attacker consequently ran onto the bridge where he was tackled by several civilians whose actions were justly characterized as heroic as not only did they have a knife to deal with, they also had no way of knowing the suicide belt was a fake. These civilians had wrestled him to the ground and held him until the police arrived several minutes later.
Upon arrival, armed police officers had dragged the people who had held the attacker down away from him. Consequently they ordered him not to move - the order he likely did not follow - and then shot him dead. The officers did exactly the right thing if my understanding of the incident is correct - they had no way of knowing the suicide belt was a fake and their job was to neutralize the threat, using deadly force if necessary. Which they did.
So we have what by all indications was a terror attack. The UK police are indeed treating it as such - and the perpetrator may have not been a lone wolf as at least one apprehension has been made that may be related to this attack. We will likely hear more about it in the days to come.
Regardless of the details to come out, the following appears to be worthy of discussion. We have groups in the society that view themselves as being in conflict with the society. These groups sometimes resort to political terrorism as their chosen method of operation. And under such circumstances those who encounter attackers akin to the man who met his demise on London Bridge today their victims are most valuable to them in one form only - specifically, in the form of a corpse.
Let us recap the above for a second. You are out there, minding your business - and then all of a sudden you face somebody who, while having no particular animosity towards you personally, wants you dead due to their political or ideological views. You have nothing to negotiate for your life and safety with - the aggressor is not interested in your property, you can not offer that aggressor sex in exchange for your life, the aggressor needs your corpse. So effectively you only have one option: using force to neutralize the threat.
In light of that, the idea that citizens should not be armed and yet the police would be able to handle a distributed threat of this kind seems to be fuzzy thinking at best. And today's episode may be a great example illustrating this thesis. Note how the police response was, by all indications, exemplary. Yet that did not stop the attacker from doing the damage he intended to do - it was those heroic civilians on the bridge that stopped him. And perhaps if some of his stabbing victims - or those around them - had been armed he would have been stopped even earlier.
We live in the times of distributed threats. Distributed response, akin to every living organism's immune system, appears to be the most logical response to those threats.
Source
The moment police shoot dead terrorist on London Bridge after attacker wearing fake suicide belt stabbed five: Hero passers-by struggle with suspect before officers drag them away and open fire as crowds flee scene
Mark Duell, Daily Mail, 29 November 2019
London Bridge Terror: Police Shoot Knifeman, Several Injured
Oliver JJ Lane, Breitbart, 29 November 2019
London Bridge attack: What we know so far
BBC, 29 November 2019