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The 'upsides' of owning a gun don't outweigh the horrible potential consequences for myself and others around me.Of course other people make different value judgements as to the risks.
If I was in the US I'd be less concerned about general firearm ownership, and people basically being about to have whatever they want in their own homes, versus all the concealed carry and stand-your-ground laws, both of which impact public safety more. And it seems toward the negative (AFAICT).
> I'm really glad that guns are not as prominent in my country compared to the US.
As someone in Canada, the day-to-day firearms stuff isn't as prevalent, but we're tied for 7th in per capita ownership:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...
However, from a firearms death rate (homicide+suicide), we're lower than what many people would expect:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...
With a lower rate that Austria, Switzerland, Finland, and France. IMHO this is because (a) we have mandatory licensing/training, which works as a filter to reduce the cowboy types, (b) relatively lower rates of poverty which helps with reduce crime (most shooting seem to be gang-related), and (c) decent social programs which helps the less fortunate. Many calamities are also probably reduced through safe storage laws.
I don't think there's a need to even "ban" firearms or specific firearm types if these are implemented.
There's no one silver bullet that will solve gun-related problems, but there are a few policies that have been shown to work fairly well. It's 'just' a matter society choosing to implement them.