The problem is American gun culture and the probability that any call might turn into a violent one. Other countries don't have that problem so they can send unarmed social workers with higher confidence, over a life time of calls, they're going to see retirement. In America that isn't the case and responders need a gun because everyone has guns and you need to have sustainable system for keeping order that ensures, over the long tail, peace keepers stay alive. This is probably an unpopular opinion in a time of police abuses but it's orthogonal, it just means our police need to be extremely well trained and disciplined because we built a society that is inherently more dangerous (and this costs a lot of money which we're now defunding).