Reply #53: Given that crime rates in the UK have always been about 1/3 of those in the USA

[slackmaster]

I'd say its pretty much all a function of society, not guns per se. The USA has always had about triple the rate of knife violence and bare-fist violence as the UK. And most of ours is concentrated in a few dangerous urban areas. Most of the geographical area of the USA is free of crime.

...Either that, or your society is just too violent in the first place even without adding handguns to the mix, and giving people guns is throwing gasoline on the fire.

Not a bad analogy, because once that gasoline has been thrown there is really no way to un-throw it.