I'm with you as far as the fact that we should have the right to defend ourselves almost without boundary, if you'll excuse the cricket pun.
But, I'm still not going with the gun proliferation. I look at US shooting figures and then UK shooting figures and I prefer it our way.
It's not the guns themselves, it's the people holding them that worry me. As I'm sure you've noticed, the UK has a spectacularly high percentage of crazy people and I'm in no hurry to tool them up.
The answer is to have spectacularly high penalties for criminals convicted of a crime with a gun.
Actually, the gun violence statistics in the US are highly inflated and grossly overstated by the international press. The violent crime rate in the UK has been higher than that of the US for some time, something that the UK press is usually not eager to talk about.
Despite international press pronouncements to the contrary, we in the US are not a 'wild west' society where there are High Noon shootings every day and the streets are rivers of blood.
A gun in the hands of a law-abiding citizen is a society's best bet for peace and stability.
Unfortunately, they're already tooled up thanks to the easy availability of black market weapons. Gun control laws only affect law-abiding citizens. They won't affect criminals, because criminals are, by definition, lawbreakers anyway.
My hope is that one day you might grace our shores with a visit, and see America through your own eyes, rather than through the words of a Leftist, America-hating international press. This Freeper would be pleased to show you around. We could go shooting
WADE'S EASTSIDE GUNS & INDOOR RANGE - Bellevue, WA
We could even go for a steak :-)