I'll take the norms of the grossly overstated "Wild West" over "the norms of the last 70+ years," the choice is not even close with massive increase in criminal violence in roughly those last 70 years and most recently in the last couple of years.

Public safety has demonstrably has collapsed in both NYC and San Francisco, two cities I cite because we know their very small numbers of concealed carry permits (60,000 ownership ones, not all allowing concealed carry, and 1-3 any given year). And Hacker News features more than a few items about the latter.