Norwegian cops fired their guns twice last year and missed both times

The Norwegian government recently released statistics about how the country's police department used guns in recent years, painting a picture of a nation where police officers rarely draw their guns and rarely injure anyone with those guns.

The report found that in 2014, Norwegian police threatened to use their weapons 42 times. However, only two shots were actually fired during the entire year, and no one was wounded by either.

The report also featured historical data showing that the number of times police officers had drawn their weapons was at its lowest in at least 12 years.

And for the 10th time in 12 years, not a single person was killed by police gunfire in Norway in 2014.

To American readers, these numbers might sound shocking. Consider this: Even in 2011, when 77 people, mostly children, were killed by right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, police fired their guns only once and injured one person (Breivik himself surrendered to armed police without police firing a shot).

There's a simple reason for the lack of police shootings. While there are many hunters in the country and gun ownership is relatively common, Norway is one of a handful of European nations where police officers don't usually carry guns. Breivik's rampage at a children's summer camp led some to question whether this was a good move (among the first to die was an unarmed police officer working security at the camp). The government recently hinted that it may consider arming more police officers.

Things are, of course, very different in the United States. While the country is far larger than Norway (318 million vs. 5 million) and nationwide figures are rarely announced, police shootings are clearly disproportionately common: By The Washington Post's count, more than 400 people have been shot and killed by police already this year.