This may be the big disconnect, simply put gun owners (myself included) largely don’t see homicide rates (gun or otherwise) as a failure of gun policy. We see it as a failure on crime policy broadly, which has many inputs. You’re intrinsically linking legal gun ownership with illegal gun crimes, and that we reject because we take no moral responsibility for someone using a tool immorally, someone outside of our control.
I think most gun owners would certainly concede some number of excess deaths each year can be related to having lots of guns, I do not think it is nearly as clearcut as you would like to suggest that much of the difference in our homicide rates between Canada and America are meaningfully attributable to gun policy. I know you really really want to believe it, but you don’t have any true proof of it, just speculation.
It doesn’t take very many illegal guns to commit a lot of murders–look at Mexico, which has far fewer total guns than America and more murders, and most of that with illegal guns. Colombia has the same problem. I just reject this idea that gun policy drives crime, sorry but I do. Guns don’t make people criminals. On the margins they make criminality more lethal, but that still requires an active decision by a criminal to get a gun, usually illegally.
I don’t pretend to have an easy explanation for why America is a more violent country than other wealthy countries–but I know that it is. You choose to believe ownership of legal firearms by people that never commit violent crimes is a major driver of this, I simply don’t see compelling evidence that is true.
I also firmly want it understood—I am 100% willing to trade more deaths for gun rights. This is because I do not believe in a pure utilitarian ethos that maximum death minimization is always the right path. I value liberty and individual rights. You can disagree with that, but that’s a matter of political opinion, not objective right and wrong. There are many ways we could significantly lower various types of deaths in America.
A national speed limit of 65 mph. A requirement that all new cars have BAC sensors in the steering wheel (technology already exists for this.) Banning of all tobacco products. Prohibition of alcohol sales. A tax on sugary drinks and high calorie fast food and snack items.
I would be against each and every one of those policies, because I am simply not in favor of restricting people’s liberty to produce a utilitarian death minimization result.