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Originally Posted by sexobon
Both. If you have time to run, you have time to counterattack. Running will be expected. Attackers can optimize their plans around it. Counterattack has the element of surprise. The best chance of minimizing casualties is with the latter . The exception is when facing overwhelming numbers. Then it's best to break contact by creating distance. That's a situation in which even a slim chance is better than none at all. When most people run: however, it's because they don't know how to do anything else. Most aren't inclined to learn either.
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That's a good point.
I would however point out that Londoners (and most major city dwellers) have been asked, and advised in the strongest terms, in the event of an incident: run, hide and tell. Get away from the centre of violence if you can. Take cover as best you can. Contact the emergency services asap.
If you watch the footage - much of that running away was not a panicked mob - some people were still carrying their drinks. Closer to where the violence was unfolding, there was more panic - but at that stage, what you have is a state of confusion of what the attack actually is - do they have guns, how many of them are there, is someone going to detonate explosives. So close to the Manchester bombing where a suicide bomber detonated his backpack in a crowd of people.
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Those planning on using explosives don't generally tip their hand to give people a chance to run. It would be counter productive. Should it happen, be sure to post it in monster's Idiot of The Day thread.
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Well, there was a van packed to the gills with molatov cocktails and other goodies to which they clearly intended to return - and the people on the ground at the time would have been able to clearly see that the attackers were wearing what looked like belts of explosive canisters.
A former soldier might have enough experience of battlefield thinking to make a quick determination of whether that belt is likely to be a bluff in a particular situation, but your average civilian really isn't going to be able to make that call.
Who the fuck knows what is going on in the mind of the person wearing that belt - if it's a bomb belt, are they waiting for a signal/? Are they waiting to coordinate attacks? are they waiting until they are about to be captured so they can detonate it rather than be taken alive?
There are all sorts of reasons an attacker might not immediately detonate a bomb.