I'm from the UK where debates about guns don't exist.

[muriel_volestrangler]

116. Indeed; in the UK, you'd get a better idea of prevelance with the British Crime Survey

but you'd really need to do the same survey in both countries to measure them against each other.

For a crime that is more likely to be reported (or as likely in either country, anyway), and defined roughly the same in both countries, and which could be argued on both sides - that availability of firearms either helps the criminal or the victim - you have robbery. Stats for that for 2010 seem to be :

USA: 367,832
England and Wales: 76,189 (Apr 10-Mar 11)

England and Wales population in the 2011 census (the end of that period) was 56.1 million; US 310.5 million at the end of that period. So:

E&W: 135.8 robberies/100,000 pop
USA: 118.5 robberies/100,000 pop

So there's no clear argument that absence of guns cuts the robbery rate; perhaps the presence of guns does cut it, but the figures are close enough that you have to look for other possible factors too, eg the incarceration rate.

However, the homicide rates do remain significantly different, and the use of guns in homicides really does point, I think, to it being far more difficult for criminals to get hold of guns in the UK, such that the holding of guns by the lawful US population doesn't make up for it.