The notion that the UK police force "doesn't have or wants fire arms" gives a somewhat wrong impression. They have special fire arms squads and in major cities

The notion that the UK police force "doesn't have or wants fire arms" gives a somewhat wrong impression. They have special fire arms squads and in major cities they either patrol amongst the regular units or are on standby. I believe there is a much more pragmatic side to it. One could see fire arms as a specialisation which needs to be handled by a specially trained squad, much like riding a police horse or doing mountain rescue. In a country with relatively very little gun violence that makes perfect sense. You train but a little group, which also gains in experience from the incidents that occur, instead of (under) training every single police officer for a shooting incident that will most likely never take place in their whole career.