I for one understand the statistics. But what some seem to be forgetting is that they had different laws from the start and they added onto them. Since in the US you are starting from a different base level, what laws work in other countries will not necessarily have the same affect here.
In those societies, even before the advent of the gun, swords were restricted in ownership, usually to a "Knight" Class and Noble Classes. When guns came into being, they applied the same restrictions upon them. When dealing with the issue of guns, you have to understand that the other countries have always had some restrictions on the ownership of "weapons" while the US has had very little restrictions upon ownership of "weapons".
The US is unique in it's attitudes and laws governing ownership of "weapons". Therefore, what works elsewhere will not necessarily work here. Because of our uniqueness in the issue, we have to seek a unique path and solution on the issue.
It's not widely understood among Americans, but the whole concept of
“a ‘Knight’ Class and Noble Classes” is part of what we were utterly rejecting when we founded this nation.
Under the European concept of nobility, people were born in a vast social hierarchy, which determined which people were better than which other, just by their parentage. At the top of this hierarchy was a king, and below him, several different levels of nobility including knights, dukes, counts, barons, and so on.
One of the best-known phrases from our Declaration of Independence is the statement that
“…all men are created equal…”. What most people don't realize, I think, is that this was a direct repudiation of the European concept of nobility. A king is not better than a duke; a duke is not better than a knight, a knight is not better than a peasant. They are all created equal, and endowed by their creator with the same inalienable rights.
I'm fairly sure that there is some language in the Constitution which prohibits the federal government or any lower government from granting titles of nobility, and imposes restrictions on Americans accepting any such title granted by a foreign government.
So, as you point out, in Europe's society, weapons were restricted to upper classes of nobility. As Mao Tse Tsung observed, all power flows from the barrel of a gun. Europe's society was based on the idea that the upper noble classes should have that power over lower classes. In America, there are no such classes, and nobody is to have that sort of power over anyone else. We are all born equal, and as such, we all are equally entitled to access to weapons.