[gridlockd]

I can tell you what isn't a defense against a gun: A baton, a taser, teargas, or any of the other toys that ordinary police get to use in the UK.

[throwaway93132]

And yet, only 2 UK police officers were killed in the last year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_police_officer...

[gridlockd]

Yes, because guns in the UK are rare and police officers aren't going to engage someone with a gun when they're armed with just toys.

[ric2b]

So we agree that the UK system works much better. Both less police and less civilians killed.

[gridlockd]

No, we don't. For comparison, in Germany, a slightly larger country, where officers are armed, less than one officer per year died in the past decade:

https://www.dw.com/en/two-german-police-officers-killed-by-f...

If officers don't engage because they are insufficiently equipped, you effectively have less policing. Less policing causes more violence and more deaths.

"Stop and frisk" works:

https://www.npr.org/2012/05/15/152764402/stop-and-frisk-work...

Knife crime in the UK keeps going up...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42749089

...as a result of literally defunding the police:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/02/criminals-go...

[throwaway93132]

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/United-Kin...

Why pick out a random statistic like knife crime? It sucks, but matters much less than the following statistics:

US has 4 times more intentional homicide rate vs. UK. US has 18 times more murder rate vs. UK.

I think the evidence is quite clear that the UK with police that are less heavily armed have better crime statistics, fewer police deaths, AND fewer civilian deaths caused by police.