Depending on the source and methodology used, there are between 60,000 and 2.5 million defensive uses of firearms a year. Compare that to 10,000-11,000 homicides with guns (https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls).
Native Americans kicked the U.S. calvary's butt plenty of times, especially when they had guns, and what opportunity did slaves have to own guns? Guns eventually ended slavery when the Union defeated the Confederacy and could enforce the Emancipation Proclamation. On the flip side, dictatorships and other murderous regimes always begin with gun control, then confiscation.