That's a really ignorant statement. The problem with the gun debate is that nobody wants to walk in another's shoes.
There are many people who live in areas where police response is nonexistent for many types of crime or response times are awful. Guns are a great equalizer for the weak.
The overblown prohibition push over the years has empowered the more extreme gun advocates and created the potential for more problems.
I had a man break into my home when I was there. He got in through the roof, going up scaffolding on a derelict building next door.
I offered him a cup of tea, and told him it would probably be safer for him to leave via my front door and down the stairs rather than back down the scaffolding. He declined the tea, but I went and made one for myself and called the police. He went back out the way he'd come in. The police caught him in the garden, where he brandished a bottle at them. They did not shoot and kill him[1], they de-escalated then caught and cuffed him. He served a short sentence, got some drug and alcohol rehab, and is now only engaged in minor crime.
At no point did I think "this would be better if any of us (me, him, the police) could have a gun".
That's nice, especially since he didn't have one of the very many knives which are, I gather from the news, such a perennial problem in your neck of the woods. Here's hoping you stay lucky!
Knife crime was popular in the news for a while because they reported on disproportionally many cases, presumably because of the lack of something more exciting - like gun crime.
There are many people who live in areas where police response is nonexistent for many types of crime or response times are awful. Guns are a great equalizer for the weak.
The overblown prohibition push over the years has empowered the more extreme gun advocates and created the potential for more problems.