If you ask anybody outside the US, almost all of them will probably tell you that the US has a big gun problem. If you ask someone inside the US, your answer will be more of a mixed bag.
With 4.88 murders per 100,000, he US has one of the highest death rates in the first world (with a couple of odd exceptions like Puerto Rico(15.8) and the US Virgin Islands(52.6)). According to the list above, the US ranks 94th worst just behind Kenya (5.75) Somalia (5.56) Kyrgyzstan (5.12), but worse than countries like Niger and Rwanda (both 4.5) , Iran(4.1), Lebanon(4.0), Lybia (2.5), Syria(2.2), Canada(1.7) and Burkina Faso (0.7).
Many Americans think that owning a gun makes their family safer… I would call this “Drinking the Kool-Aid”. According to the FBI Homicide Database (2014 numbers), there were 2276 murders where the victim was known to be a family member or loved one of the killer (table 10) Since 67.92% of murders were with guns(table 11), I would then estimate that 1546 family, friends or loved ones are known to have been killed by guns.
By comparison, there were 277 justifiable homicides by citizens .. 229 with firearms. This means that if you own a gun, it is roughly 6.75 times (1546/221) as likely to be used to kill family or loved ones as it is to kill a felon. That ratio rises to 7.73 if you include friends.
So, that gun in your (or your friend’s) safe is roughly 7 times as likely to kill a loved one as a crook, but people think that it makes their family safer. Yes, if a prospective crook knows that you own one or more guns, it might deter him/her .. but that 7-1 ratio is hard to overcome.
Like I said… drinking the Kool-aid.