I was stopped (on foot) in Akihabara (sp?  It's a section of Tokyo known for electronics stores) in 2009 by a Japanese policeman asking if I had a knife on me.  He saw (me as) a Yanqui with a Surefire E2e sticking out of his pocket so he thought I might be armed.  It was a short but polite conversation.  I don't recall him being openly armed but it would not surprise me if he had a small pocket gun on his person.

if a bad guy beats the cop's ass and throws them into to the trunk, it's Go Time.

Thats not going to change anytime soon.

Our bureaucrats are paranoid over AR-type rifles

You could send emails to the US NRA to look at the issue.

And I'd CC the Department of Commerce.  It is their job to promote exports.

Generally true around here, although some of the richer schools have enough cash so that they can pay for state (?) troopers to patrol their campus.  As an example, the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia has its own station at 38th and Locust Walk, which is basically in the middle of the campus.  The officers are all armed as they are no different from any other Pennsylvania state trooper.

You should have heard the uproar when the university police wanted to go to semi-automatic handguns from revolvers in the early 1990s.  

I agree with both of you, but it's for US businesses to decide that the UK Market is worth selling to.  Most US sellers will only export to one agent in the UK, if at all.  Thaty Agent then usually sticks on a big chunk of profit and our import duty and tax does the rest.

The economically viable option is to deal direct with US suppliers who will ship out to us as individual shooters for one off purchases.  Most people won't do that.  The result is that we either pay though the nose for kit that costs you guys a couple hundred dollars or we come over and buy it out there...... things like La Rue Rails and Magpul kit cost twice what they do in the US.

It may be a good thing in some ways as the UK is now starting to look at potential for developing it's own AR components

German cops here carry a H&K P7 (Bavaria, others have the P2000, P30 or a Walther P99, Feds -Bundespolizei and Customs-, have SIG's). Patrolcars have one or two MP5's, the individual officer has pepperspray and a baton as well. They can get a off-duty permit (Ersatzbescheinigung) to carry a POF, or they just carry their duty pistol off-duty (at least here in Bavaria).

+2

 But they do have the Irish army escort armored cars to and from banks due to the IRA knocking so many of 'em off.

I believe the answer is graveyards.  I am pretty sure those who are there are unarmed.

I assume that also, the less an ordinary officer is allowed to handle firearms there less likely they are to fuck up and shoot themselves or each other.
Because the level of training they get in the use of firearms is laughable. Specialised teams do get a lot more training.

It is an ongoing debate in NZ, The balance between increased cost of training, and ND's and injuries, compared with a realistic level of threat that officers face.

The sadly all to common occurance of NZ police shooting at a householders dog