Very few people who set out to commit a crime do so with the intent to also commit murder. What personal gun ownership does is make the criminal assume that everyone has a gun. Now, we have seen that this assumption has not stopped crime, so let’s look at the converse. If the criminal assumes that no one has a gun, there will not be a need to use a gun, so the overall chance of violence associated with a crime is lower. Furthermore, in assuming that only the criminals have guns, the criminal attempting the robbery knows that if the person he is trying to rob does have a gun, he will be more likely to use it. Compare this to the arms race with the Soviet Union. If homeowners own guns, then criminals will carry shotguns. If the criminals get shotguns, then the homeowners get assault rifles. If the homeowners get assault rifles, the criminals get Kevlar; the increase continues ad infinitum. Why force the cycle to move upward when we can get it to move downward?