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Isn't it often more than that though? You like the idea of hitting nails, so you buy lots of different hammers and hammer-adjacent items, and then go looking for nails or nail-adjacent or anything that looks nail-like in the dark through squinted eyes, and then hit away as soon as the opportunity arises.
NotThamesWater-
In America, probably yes. I don't suppose there's a cop in the US who doesn't carry a gun. However the whole country seems to have the same gun culture, cop or not. If this same scenario played out in the UK the kid would have got to the shop, done his business and been given a carrier bag to carry it away in. The concerned off duty security guard would have phoned it in and if the unarmed police had got there they would have observed from a safe distance. Inquiries in the shop made and everyone goes home safe. In an ideal world that's what would happen but if UK armed cops had turned up I doubt the kid would have been shot. UK armed cops are trained to de-escalate as soon as practicable and are in pairs whenever possible. The untrained fuckwit with a gun scenario would not happen in the UK.
Constable_Savage
Confirmed.
I suspect this off duty security guard had never been trained in any form of conflict management. He was probably pumped full of adrenaline and incapable of rational thought. Why the fuck do you need to carry a gun when collecting your kid from a training class. Nothing about his actions was right but then he's just a scared little man acting the hero. I've no doubt a fat useless cop waiting for his colleague's return from the doughnut shop would have acted in the same way. It's a classic example of only having a hammer so everything looks like a nail.