A 30-06, or a 308, or a 7.92×57 in the torso stops the fight. The fact that it kicks too hard for comfortable use by the Moor-in-the-street is good news for us. [...] I am bemused by the continuous attempt on the part of various commentators to establish “a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.” Somehow I do not see a problem there. When I was in school, there was no difficulty in establishing a link between the Stanford football team, the Stanford band, and the Stanford faculty. They were all “sons of the Stanford red.” All these Moors are card-carrying Moors.

Just thought that funny. Like kicking my dog funny.

How does it not fit? There are suicide bombers in England. Whether they strap their explosives to their chests, or their backs, or their buttocks, is immaterial. You shoot suicide bombers in the head if you know what’s good for you.

…unless you think those likely to be shot are more or less expendable. (This would explain why it can be done in Israel.)

Mm-kay. Going away now.

Given that we have a sample of two waves of UK attacks (or 8, possibly 9, bombers), and given that there is no reason why future UK suicide bombers will not adopt the triggering mechanisms used overseas, has it occurred to you that your reasoning is, to put it politely, not especially robust, or, to put it impolitely, an empty-headed sneer by an ignorant fool?

For obvious reasons, police do not use rifles in the streets. Israeli street patrols use 9mm in those little Uzis.

Matt, most “shoot to kill” orders aren’t tailored specifically for suicide bombers. David’s initial assertion, which you chose not to address, is correct: the head-shot is taken so as to prevent the bomber from deliberately detonating his weapon. Incapacitation of the target must be immediate and complete, which cannot be achieved except by disrupting the central nervous system.

Also, Marc Mulholland is talking smack, again, in positing a false antithesis between a tactical policy to be applied in a small number of cases, and a long-term strategy of infiltration, and in suggesting with zero supporting evidence that the latter has been ruled out.

The combination of public policing with regular recourse to lethal force is, as you say, problematic. However, replacing it with an emphasis on covert intelligence must also be fraught with danger. The latter is, by its nature, unaccountable. It also has a tendency to slide into malign counter-insurgency techniques. These usually include the running of pseudo-gangs, collusion with double-agents involved in illegality, winking at terrorist activities – up to and including murder – for tactical reasons, and the de facto inclusion of assassination in the state’s domestic repertoire.

Stephens’ militant policy of obliterating brains may be a counter-intuitively liberal response to his long running investigation into the shady world of British intelligence and collusion in Northern Ireland.