This is a very sensitive topic but being from South Africa, the country with the highest per capita murder rate from firearms, I thought I'd offer some views for the discussion and paint a picture to put your situations in perspective.
Firstly, there is one aspect many of us here envy those of you in the US, Europe, Australia and such on. It is that when there is a gun related death in your countries, especially a massacre, it raises questions and heated public debate with a sense of urgency. That's something we admire and the common comment I've heard passed on the news of the massacre in the States was how 'at least the Americans give a damn about it'.
Over here however there is no urgency of action or thought towards such events unless the gun deaths are graphic or involve someone of celebrity for the purpose of selling news. The murder rate you see in that link is all too true and an accepted way of life here.
Psychotic murders with guns here are also too common and sometimes are hardly even noticed by the broader public. The recession seems to have increased the number of stories of unstable fathers suddenly murdering their entire families before turning their gun on themselves. We are indeed too trigger happy as shown by the recent case of how a drunk off duty police officer with 40 years of service gunned down one of the national cricket officials because of an argument. From what I also gather, victims of most firearm related murders knew their murderer. Take how one man shot his cousin because of an argument over a woman or how two drunk friend's own recent argument ended in death.
It's not uncommon in some ultra-conservative Afrikaans areas to see Afrikaner women carrying their own guns. One (rather rough) woman I had the misfortune of knowing nearly drew her gun at a party once on some guys because they had thought it would be funny to throw her into the pool.
On the other hand one guy I encountered described a horrifying story of how he was hi-jacked, beaten and forcibly taken to the middle of slummish Hillbrow in Johannesburg where his greedy and bloodthirsty assailants brazenly told him that they intended to force him to withdraw all the money from his account at an ATM before finishing him off with a bullet to the brain. Somehow they'd missed how he had a small handgun concealed in the front of his pants. So as he was marched down a busy Hillbrow street by the three of them with a hidden gun pushed into the side of his abdomen he took the last chance left to him, turned, drew out his firearm and removed the safety in one smooth movement before shooting two of them dead. The cops called to the scene upon arriving didn't arrest him but almost immediately congratulated him for taking out what they recognised straight away as two hardened criminals. But it's still something he never wished to happen because although by rights he should be dead today and what he did saved his life it sticks with him and troubles him. At least the court saw it as self defence too.
Local nature conservation can also be violent. Recently five rhino poachers entered into a firefight with game rangers in the middle of a game park. All five poachers were shot and the result was greeted with much enthusiasm by the wider public. But lets not also forget that in some of these rural areas too there are still powerful wild animals and rangers have had to resort to their heavy rifles when herbivores like enraged elephant bulls or hippos have charged visitors (did you know that hippos kill more people than any other large animal locally?). That may not have anything to do with human crime per say but it does suggest how guns are also indeed a life saving necessity in some natural environments.
And yet we have these supposedly amazing gun control laws modelled on Europe's. The problem here is that the enforcement and administration thereof has completely collapsed and guns regularly disappear from police firearm depots due to malaise and corruption in the police force while military grade firepower can even be stolen from the army. That's not helped either by how the criminal justice system is in utter shambles underlining how critical a suitable crime prevention system is and allowing a free gun policy would only make it worse. The crime rate itself is also only partially abated even though the number of firearms in the country has been (admirably) reduced and the civil war in neighbouring Mozambique, that was promoting the entry of arms into the country, ended long ago.
What is interesting then is to point how the private security agencies have triple the number of public police officers with some being armed patrols equivalent to the American model and others even more heavily armed units, which does serve as valuable deterrents against the proliferation of firearms.
That's because when criminals invade homes and take the residents hostage they often demand the household firearm and can be willing to engage in torture to extract information thereof. The private security agencies however bring the promise of substantial and well trained firepower so homeowners who can afford private security prefer to turn to that than sometimes own a gun. That does deny lower level criminals freer access to firearms.
But criminals locally can also be amazingly ingenious. In the townships hand made handguns can be found and bought with some effort. No gun laws are going to stop someone creating that by hand, although stricter police enforcement would deter them. The same would count for care hi-jackers, who use their filed down handguns to ambush people.
The maelstrom I've described above seems to both raise doubts in the validity of gun control in some aspects but validates it in others. What I'm however ultimately trying to point out that firstly neither a free for all for guns nor draconian gun control is feasible or realistic as it's an imperfect world that rests on the sanity of wider societies. Secondly that without the will and ability to maintain a proper criminal system that properly deters criminals then gun control is self defeating. Thirdly that laws seeking to deny the mentally unstable access to firearms without denying the law abiding and stable access to firearms, and not military grade firepower, is also critical. Rights come commensurate with responsibilities and when a mentally unstable individual is unable to maintain the responsibility of their wellbeing then gun rights for them are questionable.
Just a thought. John Lennon's "Imagine" comes to mind.
