The police should not be reacting in such a way that they exacerbate those problems. By routinely arming its police officers, the state effectively legitimizes the weapon as a symbol of authority. Whether or not this is pragmatic, it is an implied affirmation of the criminal sub-culture, which will accordingly be strengthened.  The argument about a rapid increase in gun crime in the UK depends upon a very limited and selective use of crime data. Recorded gun crime did indeed rise by close to 105% between 1998 (when handguns were banned in the UK after the Dunblane tragedy) and 2003, but a large proportion of that increase is attributable to air weapon misuse and non-firing replica weapons. [1] Since then the increase has largely stabilised and even fallen. A temporary trend, now brought under control, is not necessarily a strong argument for changing, for ever, the nature and character of British policing.  By this policy—especially in the absence of a Constitutional right for citizens to bear arms—the role of the police is essentially defined in opposition to at least part of the citizenry. This can be contrasted to the more common expectation that police and citizens operate under essentially common rules, for shared values and that policing is undertaken in a spirit of the minimum use of force and by ‘public consent’.  [1] Squires, P. 2008 Gun Crime: a Review of Evidence and Policy, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies