To combat the threat of guns owned and used by civilians, police forces across the world mostly resort to arming their own officers. A few countries are an exception to this rule, including Iceland, New Zealand and the UK. The latter is particularly interesting as it leads to one of the lowest rates of police killings per 10M population. A few benefits of this approach are:

• higher levels of acceptance of policing by consent.
• fewer gun-related fatalities overall.

“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you will start treating all your problems like a nail”. The old saying is something all police forces should heed and evaluate using alternative means to protect and serve their civilian populations.