By Rick Noack February 18

A member of the St. Louis County Police Department points his weapon in the direction of a group of protesters in Ferguson, Mo., on Aug. 13, 2014. (Jeff Roberson/AP)

In the United States, it seems obvious that police officers carry guns and are allowed to use them.

In other places, however, this would be considered a provocation and a violation of law.

In Britain, Ireland, Norway, Iceland and New Zealand, officers are unarmed when they are on patrol. Police are only equipped with firearms in special circumstances. It's a strategy that seems to work surprisingly well for these countries. Police officers there have saved lives -- exactly because they were unable to shoot.

"The practice is rooted in tradition and the belief that arming the police with guns engenders more gun violence than it prevents," Guðmundur Oddsson, an assistant professor of sociology at Northern Michigan University, told The Washington Post.

As the U.S. grapples with its own debates over gun control and better policing, these five nations could teach some crucial lessons.

In Iceland, one third of all citizens are armed -- but police officers are not most of the time

When police shot a man in Iceland in 2013, it was the first time cops had used their firearms and killed a person in the history of this country, according to the Christian Science Monitor. Granted, Iceland is a tiny country with only 300,000 inhabitants.

However, one third of the country's population is armed with rifles and shotguns for hunting purposes, making it the 15th most armed country per capita in the world. Despite this, crime is extremely rare.
A demonstrator challenges a policeman during a protest outside parliament, in Reykjavik, Iceland Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009. Police used tear gas to break up an angry protest outside Iceland's parliament early Thursday, and two officers were hospitalized after being hit by rocks, the force said. It was the first time the country's police had used tear gas in more than half a century, and came as demonstrators mount increasingly violent protests against a government they blame for leading once-prosperous Iceland into economic ruin. (AP Photo/Brynjar Gauti ) ** ICELAND OUT ** A demonstrator challenges a policeman outside parliament in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 2009. (Brynjar Gauti/AP)

Are Icelanders simply more peaceful than Americans? "Iceland's low crime rates are rooted in the country's small, homogenous, egalitarian and tightly knit society," sociologist Oddsson said.

When asked what struck him most about crime in Iceland, Richard Wright, a criminology professor at Georgia State University, said: "Once, during a presentation, an Icelandic police officer kept referring to 'poor people with problems' -- and it took me a while before I realized that she was talking about offenders. She considered every citizen precious because 'we are so few and there is so much to do,' she said."

Wright also thinks that the powerful standing of women in Iceland's politics, as well as within the police force, has helped to maintain low crime rates -- something the U.S. should learn from. Both Oddsson and Wright agree that low inequality and a strong welfare system have also contributed to Iceland's success in sustaining its unarmed police.

Most of Ireland's officers are not even trained in using firearms

Ireland has gone a step further: There, most police officers would not even know how to use a gun if they were threatened. According to the U.N.-sponsored research site GunPolicy.org, only 20 to 25 percent of Irish police officers are qualified to use firearms. Despite that, Ireland has much lower crime rates than the United States.

In Britain, 82 percent of the police do not want to be armed

"Sadly we know from the experience in America and other countries that having armed officers certainly does not mean, sadly, that police officers do not end up getting shot," Greater Manchester Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy was quoted as saying by British media outlets in 2012, after two of his officers were shot dead.

Police keep protesters apart in central London on Feb. 8. (Stringer/AFP via Getty Images)

The practice of walking unarmed patrols is an established fact of police life everywhere in the U.K. apart from Northern Ireland: Since the 19th century, British officers on patrol have considered themselves to be guardians of citizens, who should be easily approachable. There are far fewer incidents of deadly clashes between police and suspected criminals. While there were 461 “justifiable homicides” committed by U.S. police in 2013, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, there was not a single one in the United Kingdom the same year.

In a 2004 survey, 82 percent of Britain's Police Federation members said that they did not want to be routinely armed on duty, according to the BBC. At least one third of British police officers have feared for their lives while being on duty, but remained opposed to carrying firearms.

In New Zealand, a professor argued that it's more dangerous to be a farmer than an unarmed police officer
Photographer: Rob Griffith Credit: Associated Press Source: Associated Press -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Two local girls offer tea and cakes to police and NewZealand Urban Search and Rescue workers in Christchurch. Two girls offer tea to police in New Zealand after an earthquake in 2011. (Rob Griffith/ AP)

In an essay, Auckland Technical University Senior Criminology Lecturer John Buttle calculated that it is in fact safer for police officers not to carry weapons. "[In New Zealand], it is more dangerous being a farmer than it is a police officer," he wrote in a paper, published 2010. Arming the police would inevitably lead to an arms race with criminals and a spike in casualties.

"Only a dozen or so senior police officers nationwide are rostered to wear a handgun on any given shift," Philip Alpers, Associate Professor at the Sydney School of Public Health, told The Washington Post.

Norway has stuck to the tradition -- despite a shock in 2011

In 2011, Norway suffered through a tragedy which exposed the dangers of unarmed law enforcement authorities. Back then, far-right gunman Anders Behring Breivik attacked a Norwegian summer camp and killed 77 people.

Murders are extremely rare in this Scandinavian country -- but many blamed a delayed and flawed police response for the horrifying carnage Breivik was able to inflict. So far, though, the tradition of unarmed police officers has proven to be stronger than the fear of terrorism.

There are other places, too.

Twelve out of 16 Pacific island nations, for instance, do not allow police officers to carry weapons, either. "Their regional bumper sticker now reads: An unarmed society is a polite society," says Alpers of the Sydney School of Public Health.

Most experts agree, however, that it would be counterproductive to suddenly disarm U.S. police officers without addressing the origins of crime. "Any attempts to roll back the militarization of the American police would need to be accompanied by policies that increase economic and racial equality and legitimate opportunity for advancement for the poor," sociologist Oddsson said.