A couple points I'm going to drop here...
RE: The person wanting public appeal to carry. I'm an atheist. There's no possible way I'm going to be elected to office (if that gets put on media outlets) or be able to appeal to any group of people here in the "Bible Belt" that I am capable of owning a weapon because most of them would think I had no "fear of God."
RE: US Crime vs. Pop. Density. I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm pretty sure 95-99% of all crime happens in the most populous areas (NY, Detroit, LA...) and I realize that's kind of obvious given ratios... but you get outside of these dangerous areas and there's literally no worry, no real crime, and people are generally not afraid. Sure, you hear about the small town every so often, but there's less animosity in small town US than in the suburbs. I've noticed this moving from small town Ohio to Chicago and eventually back to Ohio.
So why do I say this has any affect? I was looking for the European city crime numbers before, but I'd venture that the US has more major cities with major crime hubs than any other country. Because we have all these major cities there is an element of crime in each one and each one likely has "turf wars" with gangs fighting. Now, we talk of England and the only town anyone mentions is London. I quite frankly don't know if there's any other MAJOR towns outside of London that would host gang turf wars (knifes, guns, whatever...) if they had a chance.
Of the
top 100 populous cites in the world, population wise:
USA 9
Germany 5
Italy 2
UK 1
France 1
Greece 1
Spain 1
So, US 9, Europe 11 (I think I got them all, did it quickly from memory) Also, Japan has 3 if it matters. China's up there, but who knows what they report... (Props to Germany for having so many people with a low crime rate! Quick Wikipedia shows that they have similar restrictions there as they do in major cities here?) Now, I'm not saying that is my excuse... but I can pretty much go into the 4 (5?) major cites in Ohio (Columbus, Clevelend, Cincinatti, Toledo, Dayton?) and inquire and they all have gangs that fight. Spread this across all 50 states and it adds up quick. The violence is very concentrated.
Anyway, take it whatever way you will.