This whole line of thought is so completely and utterly alien to someone who lives in a country where civilians don't own guns.
Never mind civilians, an overwhelming number of our
police aren't armed (
edit: ...with firearms).
When I worked in Berlin, the strangest thing (the language aside) was seeing the local coppers with sidearms holstered. In the years since then, our own forces now seem to have more 'batbelts' with some form of spray available when required, as well as the handy quick-cuffs/extendible-baton. And maybe a bulky tazer unit of some kind, but far from universally. Anything more is
the exception.
Back in the heady days while certain high-profile shopping centre 'malls' and city-centres were busy places that I regularly visited (more for window-shopping/snack-shops, or just as a cut-through between transport interchange and my true destination) there
were occasional patrols of what I still (
erroneously) call "SO19" patrols (blame
The Bill), especially since
7/7, the various London bridges' incidents, Manchester Arena, etc. 'Slung+held downward' H&K and holstered Glock, I presume, but I'm far too British to have ever asked. (Personal awkwardness, that is, not any fear that the officers would take exception or anything - being British themselves, they'd probably politely tell me anything they're actually allowed to!)
Odd though, to
imagine such weapons around. In any segment of society. I've actually had a (criminal) shooting within half a mile of my home of the time, where I'd lived maybe 20 years, and an unknown incident (never explicitly checked what[1]), that involved officers and police-tape closing off a section of the next street over. Neither changed any thoughts I had about my own safety, though. Far more clear danger from recklessly driven cars and motorbikes on the very same streets. Never had my home invaded by burglars/other forms of criminals. I've been mugged
once, and that was entirely weaponless. It was a case of opportunistic brute force and my being outnumbered three-to-one... in a mutually armed version of the situation I'd have been no better off, maybe worse!
Not to make this a 'gun control' thing, just to say how very different it seems to be (and therefore
is) between places. It's probably a big reason (amongst other more mundane ones) why I've never seriously considered living in the US (probably NW coastal states as far as I've developed any general preferences). Though I've walked round bits of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania (no sidewalks on the country roads!) in my free time on occasions I've been there on business. Maybe unknowingly been in the crosshairs of some backwoods landowners, staring out from their forest-shielded house-fronts, not realising that this stranger is just a bemused Limey taking a road-map inspired jaunt - only to kill some
hours...
[1] From comments by the crowd, as I skirted round the blockage to the woodland path behind, and the 'memorial' decor replenished for years with LED 'candles' and bright ribboned things upon iron fencing, might have been a 'domestic' where a man died, perhaps at the hands of an (arguably) wronged female partner. Though then likely to have been an impromptu knife, that.