PSNI had one single firearm discharge in the two year period covering October 2023 - September 2025.
Plus 948 uses of irritant spray, 496 uses of their baton, and 38 taser discharges in the same period. And 23,489 uses of "unarmed physical tactics".
That's for a population of around 2 million. By comparison, SFPD had 10 "officer involved shootings" in the past year for a population of 800k, a rate fifty times higher than that in NI.
Of course it's not like American cops have recognized the danger that poses and politically aligned themselves with reducing or restricting access to guns, so they lose a lot of credit there, but they are genuinely facing a better armed and therefore more dangerous population.
I guess the above poster is thinking of the shoot-to-kill era of the 80s (still well within living memory): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoot-to-kill_policy_in_Northe...