These riots and lootings are reminiscent of the Rodney King beating and repercussions in LA a few years ago. Australia had the Cronulla riots.

Of late there have been riots in Syria, Libya, Greece, Thailand and other places. What is causing it? Is is a growing discontent and distrust of governments (and mismanagement) or response to economic gloom?

I don't know.

"England once was relatively free of Guns"

Come now, Belly, that's not correct; up until just post WW I any Englishman could carry a concealed pistol without any hindrance from Government.

"The Tottenham Outrage is the name given to an armed robbery and double murder which took place in Tottenham, North London and Walthamstow, Essex, on 23 January 1909, which was carried out by two Latvian anarchists, Paul Helfeld and Jacob Lepidus (sometimes spelt Lapidus).See:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tottenham_Outrage

At one stage in the pursuit of the criminals the police appealed to men in the street for arms and a number of men stepped forward and gave their pistols to the police.

"""
Of late there have been riots in Syria, Libya, Greece, Thailand and other places. What is causing it? Is is a growing discontent and distrust of governments (and mismanagement) or response to economic gloom?
"""

I think you're right on the money peli' on both counts!

*What is causing it?*

Many small reasons make one big reason. Via the benefit of smart
phones, Facebook and Twitter, its becoming far easier to organise
a riot. The evidence from Egypt was overwhelming.

Next we have a whole generation of mollycoddled youth who have
never known hard times. They expect life on a plate and if
society does not deliver, they will demonstrate.

Meantime the veneer of society is very thin, as we saw during
Katrina in New Orleans.

Meantime we have an energy hungry society of 7 billion, adding
another billion every 12 years, with rising energy and food
production problems.

So we live in interesting times. The cities will be where all
the problems are. Best I stick to the hobby farm, they won't
demonstrate out here :)

I tend to go with Lexi on this one.

The original riots were caused by the death of that local man, but no doubt the low-lifes in that area noted that they could loot some shops while the police were kept busy with the rioters and the burning cars/buildings.

They all texted their other low-life friends around England and suggested they try this tactic in their area.
What a cheap and easy way of scoring some new hi-fi gear, computers or TV's, and all with a very unlikely outcome of getting caught!

I watched some of the footage on several TV stations, and noted there did not appear to be any one obvious race of criminals involved, so it's not racially motivated. Any criminal can join in...

Arjay said;
else do they expect when they see the elites taking what little they have left.

However the gear they are stealing is in the shops in their own areas,
so someone living in their area must be buying these products !

No, the question why it is happening everywhere has been predicted.
Eygpt was an example, the demos were originally because of the high
price of food. The govt reduced the subsidy because Egypt's oil
production peaked and they had none to sell and so could not afford
to subsidise the food prices.
The Nile could not feed the population increase from 40 million to 80 million.

All the other places where these problems are arising have similar
stories. Not all so directly related to oil of course but perhaps
more indirectly related by very low economic growth or in cases such
as Pakistan , power blackouts and fuel shortages with significant contraction.