this post was submitted on 24 May 2026
1151 points (98.2% liked)
People Twitter
9993 readers
1143 users here now
People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
RULES:
- Mark NSFW content.
- No doxxing people.
- Must be a pic of the tweet or similar. No direct links to the tweet.
- No bullying or international politcs
- Be excellent to each other.
- Provide an archived link to the tweet (or similar) being shown if it's a major figure or a politician. Archive.is the best way.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's pretty common, I think only Ireland and Britain (among countries that people are likely to visit) don't carry guns.
In fact, what's unusual is that in many places where civilian use of guns is extremely rare, police standing around with submachine guns in airports, train stations, etc. is common.
To add an additional exception here, police in Northern Ireland are routinely armed, but obviously enough there's reasons there.
I was thinking of British TV when I posted that so not too surprising if its mostly a thing there.
I think it’s more common in Europe since those are large targets for terrorism. Plus if you have a distinct “armed police” they are more likely to be heavily armed.
Also, I think most police outside of major cities in the USA all have ARs in their patrol cars now. I remember when my cop buddy was complaining about five years ago when they took his car shotgun and gave him an AR instead.
Terrorism is still incredibly rare. Perhaps a train station is a bit more likely as a target, but it's extremely unlikely that any given train station will be attacked. And, an "armed response" team is pretty similar to a SWAT team. They're probably better used sitting in some central place from which they can quickly mobilize and get anywhere rather than walking around among the public at an airport or train station.