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Who saves your son?

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to give this kind of person the good news, however my first priority would be the safety of my family and if that meant letting the arsonist go on his merry way, then so be it. As I've said many times, I believe the tactics employed in this current situation by the Met fell way short of what I would expect in a riot situation.

However, it is slowly becoming apparent why the reaction wasn't as brutal as it could have been. They are expecting to arrest well over 1000 people due to cctv, fingerprints, DNA, twitter, blog photos etc. which will lead to prosecution. They already have close to 800 in custody and courts about to be sitting 24 hours a day to process these people. We're in a different world now, and just because someone isn't apprehended at the time an offence is committed doesn't mean they can't be arrested, and prosecuted based on evidence gained at the time or later through the increased use of technology.

I have no clue how this is related to my point.

Again:

I would happily shoot people setting fire to places where children sleep to stop them.

Would I be happier with the person being caught the following day, with a stern prosecution based on the increased use of technology, caught through his or her own blog or facebook images - while my son is in the mortuary ?

No, not at all.

If I had access to a gun I would use it against attackers in this scenario.