

In the 2021, the most recent year I could find easy data for, the UK had 4.7 deaths by firearms per 10,000,000 inhabitants. That’s a pretty low rate (see here for more detail and comparisons with other countries). Most of the police here don’t have guns. Most of the criminals here don’t have guns. Most of the civilians here don’t have guns.
I, also, don’t have a gun and would find it pretty difficult to legally get one. That said, in the last decade, I’ve been clay pigeon shooting with shotguns a few times and target shooting with rifles a couple of times. I don’t feel the need to tool up in my everyday life. If I want to go shooting, I can do, but I have no need or desire for a concealed carry permit for a handgun or any other firearm for self-defense purposes.
In the UK, one of the first modern (ie publicly salaried) police forces was the Metropolitan police, founded in 1829 on the principle of “policing by consent” rather than by force. In other words, our police uphold the law because we want them to not because they have shooters.
Additionally, politically, there was a lot of disquiet about the formation of a paramilitary arm of the government when the army had been used to repress and supress in living memory. So the police were created to be clearly distinct from an armed military.