I'm not judging the US gun laws (I think your problems are societal rather than caused by your lax gun laws - although they probably enable incidents to be worse than they would be otherwise) but I've always thought this argument was flawed. Having gun laws in place doesn't prevent a criminal from obtaining a gun but it does make possession of a gun a prosecutable offence. In other words, criminals may well still be able to obtain a gun but you get the opportunity to stop them before they use it.People who want a firearm with bad intent will usually find a way through backdoor channels
I'm not convinced tightening your gun laws would suddenly turn all the criminals straight and I do have some sympathy for the self-protection argument (though it doesn't speak highly of your security forces) but the lax gun laws do normalise possession, making it MUCH harder to police. So if you believe that taking guns out of your society would reduce your crime rate then legislating against their sale and ownership would make a substantial difference.
One thing I would like to say as a massive compliment to my US cousins: you don't seem to have allowed this to turn you guys against immigration or muslims (or at least, no more than you were already) which could so easily have been the outcome. You seem to have kept your rationality and seen this for what it is. You guys get a lot of flack and are often portrayed as stupid and simplistic but the way you've responded to this gives that stereotype the lie.
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