1 - There is no "gun problem," there is a "murder problem." The question is whether presence of guns makes that better, worse or has no effect. And the answer to that is less clear than you may believe. Countries with far worse murder rates (example, Brazil, with about eight times as many murders) have far more restrictive gun laws (in Brazil's case, guns cannot be transported outside the house, and you must be 25 to own a gun). Could give many more examples. The U.S. murder rate is #111 in the world out of 218 countries. "But it is still high for the developed world." Yes, but so is its inner city poverty problem, which is the actual issue. Within the U.S., two extreme examples. Plano, Texas is an affluent city of 200,000. Being in Texas, it has loose gun laws and high gun ownership rates. Detroit, Michigan is a struggling city hammered by the shrinkage of the auto industry. It has some of America's tightest gun laws. Plano, Texas has an annual murder rate of 0.4 - much lower than the UK's murder rate. Detroit, Michigan has an annual murder rate of 56.0. 2 - "But I saw a " gun deaths" chart ..." Charts that show "total gun deaths" by country are misleading, either deliberately, or because whoever created the chart has no understanding of statistics. "Total" - The U.S. has 320 million people. The other countries featured on these charts usually have about 4 to 65 million people. Of course the U.S. total will be higher, just as we have more deaths of nearly any kind. "Gun" implies the gun is the issue - no gun, no death. Yet people find ways to kill or die in Brazil, and everywhere else, with poverty being a much larger factor than gun laws. "Deaths" are 60% suicides, but charts like this imply they are mostly murders. Net result is a gibberish number that means nearly nothing. 3 - "But suicide is bad, too ..." Yes, it is. It is also bad in France, Belgium, Finland, Japan and Iceland, all of which have higher suicide rates than the U.S. 4 - "Well, however you present it, guns are designed to kill, so of course having fewer would be better." And, this is where we reach the point of a belief that is evidence for itself.