[rrsp]

The context is that guns are much harder to come by in the UK and as such the armed police in the UK are much less likely to be met by an armed individual. So you would expect there to be far fewer times where they were actually required to open fire.

[dambi0]

Might the context not be that armed police in the UK are only used for especially significant incidents and that these may or may not be determined solely on the likelihood of possession of firearms by non-police?