Take a look at the homicide data alongside gun crime and none of the law changes that reduced gun ownership in the last 50 years has made any noticeable difference to the correlation.
As you go around the world and you look at the number of guns per populace the rates of homicide using them vastly differs, Norway isn't a violent place nor does it have a lot of gun crime but it has a lot of guns. There is plenty of automatic weapon use in the UK, there doesn't appear to be serious problems with smuggling guns in, the only difference is only the bad guys can have them there is no sport use or recreational use at all.
> There is plenty of automatic weapon use in the UK, there doesn't appear to be serious problems with smuggling guns in
Except that I've given several examples where extremely well motivated 'bad guys' were unable to get anything beyond rudimentary home made pistols and were consequently unable to kill large numbers of people. Long may it stay that way, despite gun nuts who wish otherwise.
> there is no sport use or recreational use at all.
This is also untrue. About 1% of the population are licensed gun owners, mostly for shotguns in rural areas. Hunting for sport is wide spread. Sports target shooters can use shotguns, rifles and long barrelled .22 pistols.
As you go around the world and you look at the number of guns per populace the rates of homicide using them vastly differs, Norway isn't a violent place nor does it have a lot of gun crime but it has a lot of guns. There is plenty of automatic weapon use in the UK, there doesn't appear to be serious problems with smuggling guns in, the only difference is only the bad guys can have them there is no sport use or recreational use at all.