I suppose I'm a trifle biased, but there's a massive difference between a heavily-armed paramilitary police charged with enforcing the law and protecting property, and a largley unarmed civilian constabulary charged with ensuring that offenders attend court and with 'keeping the Kings' peace'.

The latter is of course the original British model and has existed in some form since Norman times. It was codified and formalised in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel when he wanted an alternative to calling out the Yeomanry when faced with civil disorder. Clearly he wished to avoid another incident such as the Peterloo Massacre of ten years earlier, when the 15th Hussars, ordered to disperse a crowd of demonstrators, charged in with drawn sabres, killing 15 people and injuring up to 700.

Not that our system is perfect, but the underlyng ethos and the unarmed nature of policing in the UK tends to lead to fewer and less severe incidents, many of which can be put down to the shortcomings of individual officers rather than systemic failures. Yes, there is racial profiling, but there is also age profiling, class profiling and dress profiling, and no amount of training will erase one bad experience. But if the officers had not been armed, Daunte Wright and Michael Brown at least would still be alive.