Well, CamB, you need to also realize who is being shot in the US.
Your average law abiding citizen in a nice neighborhood is more likely to be run over by a Porsche than be shot by a handgun.
Department Of Justice statistics show about 70% of gunshot victims have criminal records. It's criminals shooting criminals. And it's overwhelmingly concentrated in large cities, like LA, Chicago, DC, etc. And it's mostly gang and drug related.
Our society is a very free society, and there has been a lot of moral decay in the last few decades. Violent crime HAS gone down over the last 30 years or so, yet gun ownership has steadily increased. Thusly, more guns didn't equal more crime.
If you can take an objective look at it, here's a document highlighting a lot of arguments against owning firearms, with citations of sources of data refuting those arguments.
http://www.keepandbeararms.com/downloads/GunFacts_v3.2.pdf