US already has a lot of weapons, and getting them illegaly is a lot easier, than in UK, where they literally have to smuggle them from abroad, and being an island makes it even harder.

I live in the balkans, and getting a gun here is very hard, almost impossible. People still get shot, and during the "wild 90s" here, there were a lot of shootings, even mass ones (not during the war, but after, or in in-war areas).

The only difference is, that we have "different criminals" here, so when someone gets shot, both the shooter and the shot person usually know why they're shooting and why they're being shot, and it's rarely without a good reason.