I would argue that you need a global perspective. Please google a political scientist named Rummel. In the last century, 262 million people were killed by their own governments. This number does not count war, rebellion, or other armed conflict, but instead what are commonly understood to be crimes against humanity. The vast majority of these atrocities were done in countries with strict arms control. In comparison, using the likely inflated Brady campaign gun death numbers, (and extrapolating for a lack of data pre-1935), if the entire world had the US's gun problems, the death toll would be less than 20% of that. Obviously the issue is very complex. But the US's founding fathers saw something important in creating a culture and common expectation that Americans would not be at the mercy of their government; rather the Federalist papers make clear the opposite. I do not pretend, as an American, that my country does not have problems, but I do think our problems are lesser than most because we chose to do things different.