Aight, not an American here, and I'm not trying to argue for one party or the other, BUt
I feel like a great part of the reason you guys need guns for your safety is that people already have guns. your level of gun violence is unmatched among other 'fully developped' countries from what I know.
If ,*hypothetically somehow*, you could get rid of all non-police-or-military-owned guns and started selling them again but with restrictions on who gets a permit for it and such, you would get a lot less gun related crimes.
Now of course there would still be people who use knives, crowbars, etc. to hurt people, but (and sorry to use this example, but it's the easiest one) school shooters would be much easier to escape from if they had to chase down every single one of their victims to stab them.
The problem is of course that, understandably, no one wants to have more trouble buying a gun for their self-defense than the madman who bought one easily three month prior. So it's a long term solution