There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that guns have a lot to do with crime – except that they make gun crime possible. IIRC, U.S. crime is similar to or lower than the rest of the world in all categories but violent crime. Gun proliferation certainly doesn’t prevent violent crime, and seems to only encourage more suicide and accidental gun deaths. However, gun removal seems to only have an effect in places that don’t have socioeconomic problems that encourage gun crime to begin with. That’s probably mainly because guns are easy enough to get illegally from places that make them easy to get (think the Iron Pipeline from Virginia to New York City). My guess is that, setting aside civil liberty questions about gun ownership, the best prescription probably needs to be well-considered and fitting to the circumstances. Texas and New Hampshire both have very liberal gun laws, but Texas has much higher crime. Going by this view, maybe Texas needs gun control and New Hampshire doesn’t?