Its pretty much a given that all violent crime rates, with the singular exception of murder, are higher in Britain than they are in the states, and it has been that way for years.
Gun crimes are fairly low though, and I have to say that that is certainly due to restrictive gun regulations, any rise in gun crime is due to primarily social factors (declining morality, media sensationalism etc), rather than the availability of guns.
Furthermore, whilst restricted access to guns has undeniably led to less homicidal gun rampages by crazies, but it is far less quantifiable to assess how many murders/other violent crimes would have been prevented by guns. Our violent crime rates would probably be a lot less overall as in the States if more people had guns, but on the other hand, we’d probably be seeing a lot more schools, shopping centres, cinemas etc being shot up.
That is my impartial observation on the situation.
Is that "total murder" or "firearms murder". The antis obfuscate the issue by comparing only "firearms murder", leaving out murder by other means.
All that does is attract the crazies to use them as shooting galleries.
Now, if your choices are that a few should get shot rather than many should be maimed for life, I suppose you might try restricting firearms from possession by the whole body of the people.
I guess Americans prefer to not be maimed by punks. I sure don't want to be maimed ~ and they are better off dead if they try. They won't be back.
My Brit in-laws say that it's not violent crimes that are the problem, it's theft and property crimes that are the major headaches. One of my in-laws lives outside Norwich, and one night a few years ago he and his wife awoke in the middle of the night to noise outside their home. It was several people brazenly trying to steal the tires off their car which was parked in front of their home. He opened the windown and shouted at them, and they fled. They notified the police, but nobody was arrested.