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In America, the police shot dead over 1,300 people in 2024. The police in the US are challenged by society there about that number but, of course, American police face a society with around 300 million guns in circulation, a hugely different scenario from what we see in the UK. The Americans complain because the police shoot so many people. In the UK, the rarity of the event produces a hugely magnified scrutiny, often by people who have little experience of the issues at hand, not least the fact that the officer had to make that decision in a fraction of a second while someone’s life was perhaps at risk—or perhaps their own life was at risk from someone armed with a gun, or at least they believed that.