Yes, European police are more likely to be armed. Italy has its Carabinieri as a national-level armed police in addition to a separate set of regular police.

The key to UK policing's low violence rate compared to the US is, bluntly, that people care when members of the public are shot by police. It's regarded as a failure of the alternative methods. Whereas in the US people go beyond merely defending the police into practically cheering the street execution of a "criminal".