Sir Robert Peel, the founder of the Metropolitan Police in 1829, made the first decision to not routinely arm the police form in a political strategy to gain the acceptance of the highly sceptical parliament with an aversion to continental, paramilitary policing. This notion of unarmed policing has been upheld over numerous decades and British policing is still seen as an unarmed agency until comparatively recent, where the service has had access indirectly or directly to firearms and other weapons (Miller, 1977).
When an authorised firearms officer makes use of a firearms weapon by deliberately pointing it or by discharging the weapon, that will constitute a use of force for which the officer is both legally and organisationally accountable.