[pjc50]

Yes, European police are more likely to be armed. Italy has its Carabinieri as a national-level armed police in addition to a separate set of regular police.

The key to UK policing's low violence rate compared to the US is, bluntly, that people care when members of the public are shot by police. It's regarded as a failure of the alternative methods. Whereas in the US people go beyond merely defending the police into practically cheering the street execution of a "criminal".

[andygates]

Also strict gun control. It's the single most effective population-scale de-escalation technique.

The UK has plenty of police violence -- a (disappointingly) high rate of tasering for compliance (where previously we'd see a bit of truncheon action). We just don't kill 'em because they're not going to be killing us.

[autotypo]

Department of Homeland Security is equivalent to Carabinieri.