In Seattle we had an amusing incident where a police care was stolen by someone wearing a fake police uniform. Two "real" police cars found each other shortly thereafter involved in a minor fender-bender and the occupents of each car "assumed" the other was the stolen police car with "fake cops." The shootout that followed involved something like the exchange of over 39 handgun rounds.
There were no injuries!
A question for you....Would you feel safe being protected by armed police like these, or would you feel safer with someone who regularly goes to a gun range to practice his pistol shooting skills.
At the range I go to, there are some police officer that train there. After this incident, I talked to the rangemaster and he told me that most police officers don't get much range practice time in each year. They are more worried about keeping up with the latest changes in laws and dept. policies, than honing their shooting skills.
I would much prefer to be able to own and carry a handgun or other appropriate weapons here in the UK. I just don't think that they would be helpful in the hands of amateurs in a terrified crowd on the tube. The UK anti-terrorist forces who would have done this shooting train specifically for close quarter fights with terrorists in crowds of civilians.
It's a specialised skill developed to a very high degree by extensive training, involving techniques derived from (mostly) the Sykes-Fairbairn method from WW2, traditional okinawan karate, kodokan judo, lancashire wrestling and unlicenced boxing (one of the guys who developed the approach was the son of someone who'd made a good living in the Welsh fairground boxing booths "he came from the world's most violent family of Taffs" to quote a colleague) to dominate the opponent and control them while bringing a pistol into play.
The pistol is then used according to an evolution of the Grant-Taylor method, developed by the UK's number-one wartime hit-man. http://www.gutterfighting.org/IronHand.html
Rapid fire to the face at close quarters, after your mates dump the guy hard to the ground and immobilise him is classic British counter-insurgency forces CQB technique.
You'll note that the guy was on his back with the shots fired downwards into him. These guys were the professionals.
Incidentally, if you poke about on that site I just linked you'll find such gems as a pdf of WE Fairbairn's classic "Shooting to Live" which I'm sure you'll find interesting.