Just want to clear up a couple of points which amout to the same argument: in the same way that
guns and knives are dfferent so are different types of gun.
The first one being already quickly brushed on by crayz. All Swiss do own rifles but gun crime is not a problem because of the unique compulsory national service. Where most countries' national service involves a year or so in a military establishment at about the age of 17 the Swiss have to go on military service for a few weeks every year where they are trained about the proper usage of their rifle (and, allegedly, also trained to shoot a target at 300 meters!!!!!). What people have not picked up on is that they are given (or made to buy, i'm not sure..) a rifle you know, one of those extremely long things that fires one bullet at a time and are not much use in a crime because it is difficult to conceal; great for self defense because they look mean and are accurate and are also too big for little kids to take to school with them.
Second point - Britain. yes there are gun control laws but it is still legal to own shotguns and sporting rifles. what are illegal are pistols and any gun that is capable of firing multipe rounds at the same time (i.e. machine guns). I feel that making the law like this solves all the problems. The people who enjoy gun sports still can (to my knowledge there is not an event in the Olympics called 'Fill a rabbit with as many holes as you can using an Uzi 9mm'), the people who want self defense have all they need in a double barrelled shotgun (face it, when have you ever seen the headline 'Father bravely kills 58 intruders with his M16'?), there is no way a small child is going to kill his classmates with a shotgun (have you ever tried firing one? if he doesn't know what he is doing the kickback can send a full grown adult to the floor (breaking his shoulder in the process) never mind a child) and there is little chance of a madman going on the rampage and killing 16 children with only two shells.
It seems (to me at least) that yet again compromise is the solution. The people who want guns for legitimate reasons only need rifles with a low ammo capacity. It is invariably the criminals and the psychologically imbalanced who go for the weapons better suited to mass murder and general warfare.
BTW, just a side note. There is a news article today about a village post office that was held up by a man with a rifle. He was disarmed and stabbed to death by the owner with his parcel tie cutter. Guns are formidable weapons but the close contact that theives need make rifles pretty useless for them.