As of 2024, violence, burglary and car crime have been declining for 30 years and by close to 90%, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) – our best indicator of true crime levels. Unlike police data, the CSEW is not subject to variations in reporting and recording.

Could that possibly be because shoplifting is now so easy and almost always prosecuted? It is much easier apparently to just walk into a store and walk out with a new article instead of breaking into someones house or car for a used article.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq8z8kdd8zvo

Then consider the high levels of gun violence more generally that come with high levels of gun ownership. There are so many mass shootings, school shootings, and other gun homicides in the USA. Yet somehow their citizens are safer because they have a gun that they can putatively use in self-defence?

It seems like their defence of gun ownership is a fantasy that contradicts the actual facts.

I'll stick to what the statistics and studies show. My country is safer with strict gun control, and so I'm glad that we have it. — Michael

I agree with you entirely, BUT:

The United States is unique among wealthy nations in its vast private inventory of firearms. The nearly 200 million guns in private hands are used in part for recreation, mostly hunting and target shooting. But what engenders the most public controversy over firearms is their use against people during either the commission of or defense against crime.

https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles/165476.pdf

Some one is going to have a hell of a time taking them away from their owners. And the logistics to move and destroy them would be costly and time consuming. Someone probably already worked out that it is easier and cheaper to pay funerals and compensation for the nearly 50,000 victims each year.

You haven't experienced unsafety, so you fence with paper realities that describe a society that once was.

Good for you. I wouldn't wish such a thing on anyone.

But in essence all you're saying is, because you are safe, there is no problem. Unsafety, for you, is a statistical anomaly. For me and many others it is reality.

All I can say is, I wonder how many months of being terrorized in and around your home you'd be able to stomach before you sang a different tune.

When the authorities cannot or refuse to keep me safe, they have no moral grounds to deny me the means to protect myself. It is really as simple as that.