With Paris in its third day of mourning and the world still reacting to the horrific atrocities over the weekend, fear is creeping in that some countries are simply not ready to deal with terror attacks.
Concerns are mounting that the UK is one of these nations, unprepared for such an attack. One of those who has scepticism of the countries defences is border police expert Chris Hobbs.
He wrote in the Daily Mail that British front-line police officers will have come to a ‘chilling conclusion’ that the UK’s death in a similar attack would be ‘many times greater’.
Mr Hobbs cited the fact that France managed to call upon hundreds of armed police to mount the streets in minutes, whilst Britain simply doesn’t have that capability.
The figures that back this claim up are shocking – France has 278,000 police officers armed with guns whilst the UK only has 6,000. Theresa May has promised that procedures are in place, but the sheer lack of firepower is something that deeply concerns many.
More chilling perhaps, is that until an armed response vehicle can be summoned to the scene, many responding officers would simply be spectators to the gruesome attacks.
The problem runs deeper. Firearms teams are struggling to expand after high-profile police shootings of people like Mark Duggan- which prompted riots across the country.
Mr Hobbs went on to claim that Britain’s ‘strong border controls’ in air and sea ports were simply complacent, and with government cutbacks and reorganisation, could be more prone to gun smuggling.
I know, this is all sounds pretty terrifying. But in the coming days, while victims friends and families try to make sense of these brutal attacks which took place, governments will be coming together to put plans into place to prevent this from happening again.
We can only hope they listen to these warning signs.
