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You know what's the worst thing in all of that?
I'm fairly sure that if guns were to be banned, or at least heavily restricted, in the USA tomorrow, the violent crime rates wouldn't drop; if they wouldn't grow in certain places. Why?
The thing is that American society IS violent. The extreme corporatism and cult of material profit makes life a violent competition between people. Psychoactive drugs are ubiquitous, as they're recommended for pretty much everything by doctors, and are even advertised on TV. Alcoholism and illegal drug use is rampant, no matter what the social group is; rednecks do meth, poor colored people do crack, middle class white people and hispanics smoke weed, rich white collar people do coke, outcasts do heroin. Violence is portrayed in a positive light by media, be it video games, movies, series (where heroes are often criminals, prisoners... Meanwhile, you can show as many gruesome murders as you want on TV but showing a nipple is haram), people stress a lot due to the competitive nature of life, work, and because of the fear of having to foot the bill of an insanely expensive medical operation or lawsuit... while being deprived of paid leave in most professional sectors. In American culture, if you fail, it's your fault, you're just stupid and lazy, and your life and personality doesn't have a value, it has a price in USD.
That's the big problem in the USA. Remove the guns, people will stab each other. Remove the knives, people will hit each other with hammers and baseball bats. Remove that, people will poison each other. Remove that, and people will choke each other, or throw bricks... You get the picture. That's already what happens in the UK, which is one of the European countries with the highest rate of violent crimes, and even if you can't buy rounded edge cutlery without showing your ID now, it is still an extremely violent country.
Plus, banning guns in the US wouldn't take guns off the hands of criminals, who would then reign unchallenged... unless the police gets even more weapons, funding, personnel and power, which isn't really what you'd want, either. That's what happens in France, for example, where guns are relatively common but regulated (a huge majority of the guns are owned by retired hunters in the countryside, 95% if not more of urban dwellers don't own firearms), yet there are sales of military surplus assault rifles and explosives going on in districts with the highest crime rate. No, I'm not talking about the AR-15 that many Americans have, which are NOT military assault rifles (no full auto mode = not an assault rifle), I'm talking about Kalashnikov rifles from the Eastern Bloc, Uzi SMGs, grenades and rocket launchers. You hear every couple years about banks or cash transport armored trucks getting attacked with such grenade launchers, and several times a year about robberies or gang warfare involving assault rifles. These are, of course, all banned, and have been since the 30s.
Meanwhile, look at Switzerland. Assault rifles everywhere, minimal violent crime. The difference is cultural.
Of course, guns are too widespread in the USA, but they're only a part of the problem, and maybe not the biggest one.
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