In Norway the police keep their firearms in sealed boxes in their police cars. If a policeman has to respond to a life threatening situation, and decides he must have a firearm he calls his superior officer at the police station, and is sent a code to unlock the box.

So what is interesting is that so far this year Norwegian police have only used firearms two times, while in comparable Denmark (demographically and culturally) the police, who are armed, has used their firearms 57 times.

Is this not an indicator that it is the very availability of firearms that is the cause of the police using them, rather than criminal behavior by the citizens?

I think it's a good point and quite plausible. Over here in Finland cops walk around armed, they still don't use their weapons quite as often as the Danish cops do. Although I think that Denmark might have a little more organised crime and violent crime then the other Nordic countries, I do know they have a lot of violent motorcycle gangs there.

Is this not an indicator that it is the very availability of firearms that is the cause of the police using them, rather than criminal behavior by the citizens?

Possibly, if gang members had no access to guns they might fight each other with knives and dancing but the genie is out of the bottle. There is no way you can round up 300 million guns in the US and have them destroyed.