When citizens aren't armed, dumb criminals can't find guns. (Where would they get one?) Smart criminals understands that using a gun in a society without guns will make themselves feature prominently in national news, and the police will make it top priority to arrest them.
I mean, just visit any country where ordinary citizens don't carry guns.
According to Wikipedia, 0.20 out of 100,000 people died of guns in 2015, of which only 0.02 are homicides. As for the US - 12.21 out of 100,000 total, 4.46 homicides.
Seems like British criminals do have a really hard time finding guns.
In our country, less than 10% of murders are between people who do not know each other. And if you do not live in the specific bad neighborhoods that account for nearly all of our murders, then our crime statistics are literally the same. My town of 100,000 had 0 murders last year.
If you are able to solve the problems plaguing both East London and West Baltimore, I'm all ears, however it seems the war on murder will rage on
Criminals well into the crime world decided to commit a crime will find a gun regardless of the country they are in.
US is arming the average Joe with no gun training, or psychological evaluation, the guy that is selling weed at the corner of SF, Karen that is angry at the customer service and the full of hormones schoolchildren.
Now given that all of these people have access to highly lethal guns, law enforcement has to be more pro-active than other countries, thus all of the expenses to buy war machines for neighborhood police depts.
I mean, just visit any country where ordinary citizens don't carry guns.