The UK is slowly tip-toeing into fascism by stealthily introducing armed officers into the streets, it has been revealed.

In a move that has gone relatively unnoticed, a number of police officers are now routinely carrying sidearms while on patrol in parts of mainland UK.

It is part of a softly, softly approach in which the British government is slowly introducing firearms into the police force, one cop at a time.

Although specialist armed units have carried guns for a number of years, routine officers on the beat do not carry them.

At least, they never used to. However, all of that is slowly beginning to change.

In the Scottish Highlands – an area with one of the lowest crime rates in the UK – officers are increasingly showing up to a relatively minor workaday disturbance are armed.

For decades, it has been an article of faith that in the mainland UK, the police do not carry guns as a matter of course.

However, a policy of routinely allowing officers to wear sidearms as they walk the streets of Scotland has quietly been implemented.

Police have also been carrying arms in Inverness and Glasgow.

Police Scotland – who are responsible for the forces across the country, said that 42 law enforcement departments in England and Wales have introduced similar measures.

Although some in London were issued with revolvers before 1936, from that date, only trained officers at the rank of sergeant or above were issued with guns.

Supporters of the new policy claim that it will make it easier for the police to protect the public.

However, even the police themselves admit that it will only make the criminals more likely to arm themselves. In other words, the only people who would not be armed or able to protect themselves is the law-abiding public.

In 2006, a survey of 47,328 Police Federation members found that 82% did not want officers to be routinely armed on duty, despite almost half saying their lives had been “in serious jeopardy” during the previous three years.

With current police officers being hesitant to carry guns, this new policy is only likely to encourage low-empathy people who are only too happy to use firearms when they get the chance, to join the force.

In countries across the West, we have seen too many examples where police have either shot innocent civilians or been a little too trigger-happy when it came to using the gun.

We have seen this in the case of Jean Charles De Menzes, Tarika Wilson in Ohio, Kathryn Johnston in Georgia, among too many others.

Recently, protests have erupted across Missouri in the US in response to the shooting of yet another unarmed teenager, Michael Brown.

An autopsy has recently found that his body was riddled with bullets. The family have called for the arrest of the officer who repeatedly shot Mr Brown.

The officer who shot Mr Brown, Darren Wilson, has been suspended with pay since the shooting, and Mr Brown’s family have called for his arrest and prosecution.

An independent forensic pathologist, Shawn Parcells said a wound to Mr Brown’s right arm was consistent either with having his back to the officer or facing the officer with his hands above his head or in a defensive position. This was corroborated by witnesses at the scene who have said Mr Brown was shot as he held his hands up in a position of surrender.

The latest development is just one of many examples of unarmed, men dying at the hands of armed police, even in cases where they have attempted to co-operate.

This, along with the latest policy in the UK represents a shift in which rather than being there to serve and protect the public, the police are increasingly becoming militarised and distanced from the public.

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