OK, then I should have expressed it better - it's vanishingly rare. Even armed officers are expected to de-escalate when possible, rather than shoot. There's be

OK, then I should have expressed it better - it's vanishingly rare. Even armed officers are expected to de-escalate when possible, rather than shoot. There's been some questionable sounding incidents amongst the very low numbers of actual shootings, and of course there are sometimes major cock-ups - a couple of which that sounded seriously negligent. Wikipedia says in the year 2011–12, conventional firearms were used FIVE times. At the time there were 6,756 Authorised Firearms Officers and 12,550 police operations in which firearms were authorised throughout England and Wales. Which doesn't sound like UK:US convergence to me. :)