The Bad Reviews on IMDB

That reminds me of something Roger Ebert once said to Gene Siskel on their program. When Siskel was criticizing a movie, Roger said something like:

"You're comparing it to the movie you wanted them to make instead of just reviewing the one they did make."

That applies to a lot of the criticism on this site. If people would learn to meet a movie half-way and understand what it's trying to do instead of constantly questioning the filmakers' choices they would enjoy themselves a lot more.

There are only 19 countries were the police don't carry guns. Completely inappropriate for UK police in large cities to be unarmed today because of terrorism.

None of your answers are satisfactory.

England, thus Howie, is stifled to the point of impotence.
Cops in the UK except for Northern Ireland quit carrying handguns on routine duty in 1936. They typically point to the overarching idea that they are servants of the people, not necessarily the state, and thus forgo firearms except in response. Interestingly though, Brits constantly compare themselves to the US. Any policy with a change hypothetically or literally proposed is met with, "but then we'll have an unacceptable situation/result like AMERICA," framing everything as a false dichotomy where any departure from the status quo apparently will inevitably result in the worst case scenario, which is, according to Brits, The US.
Sergeant Howie is confronted by a foreign culture he doesn't recognize as foreign, a heathen one that's comparatively lively, unreserved, and more virile than his own. The mainland England represents a reserved "island dwarfism" of sexual prowess, compared to Summerisle, invigorated by agricultural reforms and leadership of Lord Summerisle et al., with its growing agrarian sector and thus carrying capacity. Islanders in this material plenty have shifted to a mode of island gigantism in their sexual prowess/fertility.
Not only is Sergeant Howie seem *sexually* impotent compared to the islanders thanks to the stifled mainland English culture he carries with him, he is impotent as far as his ability to exert violence of action, to shoot "freedom seeds", a.k.a. bullets. Bearing arms is after all not granted by the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution, but is recognized as God-given. Per Mao Zedong, "All political power grows from the barrel of a gun." Proliferation of arms among common Americans is thus an invitation to vote- in a representative republic by ballot, and in direct democracy by bullet. Lord Summerisle has 16 rifles and 2 shotguns. He's ultravirile- even when he never uses them or his dick directly. England, thus Howie is impotent.