[Urbane Guerrilla]

I dunno, Pierce: in the American gun culture, a prevalence of weapons owned and carried is without exception associated with a drop in crime, particularly violent crime, generally if perhaps a bit less strongly a drop in property crime as well. It suggests that all crime clusters around certain individuals among whom aberrant behavior abounds. Suppress these and you can start leaving doors unlocked again.

That said, I don't think America contains humans very much different from humans anyplace else. It doesn't require noteworthy extremities of responsibility to be both safe and effective with a personal weapon. The regular portion does the job very well. You don't have to be the Pope to pack heat in a socially-redeeming-value way. For instance, snuffing out gang members behaving with lethal irresponsibility. Shooting back, to fight crime, works so often that one really should think more of it would be even better, particularly in crime-rich neighborhoods.