Riot control is suddenly a subject I am thinking about a lot in the last few days.
Here in the UK we have suffered so far 4 nights of rioting and looting. One of the tragedies of this situation is that the original cause of the first riot, the shooting of a child by police, will probably be forgotten by history.
The people on the streets of our towns and cities these past 4 nights, probably don’t know the name of the child shot, Mark Duggan and certainly don’t care, they are to steel and smash and that is all.
The traditional, fair and gentle approach for which the British Police are rightly known for is not the right way to go here. This sort of approach can stop a mob from forming, but once a mob gets together, it ceases to be reasonable.
Dealing with a mob is like dealing with a wild animal, to make your point you need to dominate it, put fear in to it and if that doesn’t work, hurt it.
It sounds very right wing (I do find my thinking increasingly right wing as I get older) but it works. Baton rounds, water cannons and tear gas should be used to break the mobs up.

The very best punishment possible for Anders Behring Breivik, would be for him to live a long life and to see the utter futility of his actions.
His actions will not drive people apart but together. He needs to see that his actions have had the exact opposite effect he wanted and he needs to know that for every day of the rest of his life.
That would be the prefect punishment and true, natural, justice.

This story is actually more than a little scary and shows once again that sci-fi really does foreshadow reality. I can remember a reading all of stories and comics where these human bombs where used.
With the explosives and detonators inside the person detection becomes very tricky indeed and I guess the only reliable way to do it would be with x-rays.
In the above story they say experts are conflicted on how easy this would be to do and that the bomb would have to recover from surgery first, but not if the terrorists where to take a lesson from the drug smugglers and have the explosives swallowed by the carrier, then all they have to worry about is the detonator, which maybe could be done via keyhole surgery.
I know it is just a little ‘sick’ of me to think in detail about these sorts of things, but because the ‘bad guys’ will be thinking the same sort of thoughts, then some of the ‘good guys’ need to do the same to keep ahead. However I think the sad fact is that you can never stop someone who is determined and doesn’t care about human life, be it someone else or their own.