Thanks for your detailed reply.

I am trying to say (without newspaper sources) that I still believe the USA to be far safer than the UK for one pertinent reason. In the UK we can no longer defend ourselves or do anything about crime, in the USA they can. We lost control in the UK when we banned guns, yet the criminals still had them. And we have seen throughout history what happens when only the leaders can have guns. Mao killed 60-80 million in China, because only he and his gang of goons had guns, if all the chinese people had been armed, there would have been no Mao, I truly believe this.