Hyperbole much? I expect most arrests are done without firearms being drawn.
> plenty of people are willing to kill to avoid that outcome.
And plenty of people are willing to kill for other reasons too, which is why no one's discussing that zero police officers should carry firearms. What's being questioned is the policy of all of them doing it.
It's a given here in the US that the moment you as much as appear to draw a gun at a cop, you're getting shot. So I don't think criminals even have to think about it to know that it's a "kill first or die" situation, once you're down that route. Now, if the criminal knows that the cop is unarmed, all of that changes: his gun is just leverage. He flees (or expels the cops off his house), which is undesirable; but then's when the situation can be escalated. No more "wild West" situations of "this guy might shoot me any moment, better be prepared to kill him for my life".
I'm going to call bullshit on that. Proportionally few criminals are North Hollywood Shootout types that require lethal force to be subdued. I would think that a very large fraction of arrests can be accomplished with threats of extra legal penalties or physical man-handling.
