so, looking at those two charts, if we want to bring our deaths by firearms down to the levels of other countries that we're constantly compared to (england comes to mind), from whom should we take the guns?
This is your error, comparing countries with similar degrees of wealth and technology, rather than culture. It would be better to compare the USA with other 'new world' countries.
The US may have had its start with an English colonial period, yet it was never like England; it was a colonial backwater, a land where its native inhabitants were of Asian decedent, American Indians.
The US had been populated by many European groups, as well, people of African decent who are as much part of the national fabric as anyone else. This was unique, compared to the homogeneous nationality of most of Europe, then.
The US has always been a mixed culture, and being such presents a difference, more similar to other nations in the Americas.
It would make more sense, culturally speaking, to compare the US with Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and other Latin American countries than to compare it to England, France and Germany.
The Muslim occupation in Europe is a new cultural trend for them, which in the Americas, the culture has always been dominated by a European elite, yet the population has always been culturally diverse.
Attitudes on this subject are a direct reflection in the cultural diversity, and this cannot be magically remedied, or rectified by addressing singular issues.
Further, every new generation has its idealistic remedies, yet change is always slow and sometimes not forthcoming.
