43 states with 74% of the nation's population having Shall Issue or better concealed carry regimes tells us the former option is not disastrous ("better": half the states not requiring a licence). Common sense tells us we won't be able to take guns away from criminals without currently unacceptable policies like Bloomberg's "Stop and Frisk" which some claim made NYC safer for a while.
A knowledge of history reminds us what happened the last time a deadly serious attempt to seize weaponry from the people was made, although hard experience tells us the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history.
Common sense and history also tells us that whatever you think of the higher level merits, going "soft on crime" like the Warren Court was emblematic of and today BLM and "Defend the Police" means a surge in all crime and that breaking out "gun violence" makes no sense, an Asian in a city where effective defense is illegal murdered by a criminal doesn't care what instrument was used.
Note on the Warren Court period: there's an overlay of the demographic bulge of the Baby Boom that makes it impossible to say how much the policies adopted at the time made a fundamental difference. Although I'd say, not that I believe for a second it'll be addressed, removing force from the toolkit for the severely mentally ill had a significant impact (as in forcing people to take their meds, just these wonder drugs being available as my mother witnessed as a nurse in the 1950s does not mean they'll be rigorously taken).