[knowaveragejoe]

If we had as few deaths from knives as China has head from knife attacks as we in the US have die from firearms in a single month, maybe even weeks, it'd be historically significant.

Add to that the social utility aspect that someone else mentioned. Firearms are explicitly designed to make it easy to hit a target with lead from far away, which just so happens to coincide with killing people in perhaps the most efficient way possible(barring weapons of mass destruction).