>> If instead a robot is the agent being threatened, the equation would be much different.
There is no need to have an armed robot then, since self defense is not necessary. It is IMHO very bad for police to shoot in domestic calls, as you never really know who the "bad guy" is, and killing someone is equivalent to saying "is someone is gonna kill some here, its gonna be me".
For other situations like robbery maybe it's not as bad, but again there's no need to protect the robot.
Not as big a need to protect the robot, but the robot might be trying to protect other people, and thus would require some method of disabling an attacker. Egregious example: a hostage situation, or an active shooter situation. With a remote controlled robot, you can use less lethal weapons against the attacker, since the robot can be sacrificed (whereas I assume we'd rather not sacrifice police officers).
There is no need to have an armed robot then, since self defense is not necessary. It is IMHO very bad for police to shoot in domestic calls, as you never really know who the "bad guy" is, and killing someone is equivalent to saying "is someone is gonna kill some here, its gonna be me".
For other situations like robbery maybe it's not as bad, but again there's no need to protect the robot.