We now have anti-gun technology that renders bullets pointless. Light travels faster than a bullet. Our AI guided lasers pop bullets before they reach their destination. They will soon be installed in public places. Now, that's the best defence against a bad guy with a gun... because it's actual defence... not fighting fire with fire.
If free access to guns made society safer, America would be the safest and most peaceful society on Earth.
Role modelling is the key way activation energy for behavioural pathways is reduced, similar to a small gulley being dug for water to begin flowing within. This is the pathway of least resistance for the water and so it flows here. Thus in a society that is given violent and unstable role modelling in fiction and in leadership, that has access to the means to create the same violence that has been role modelled, will become progressively unstable. Catalysts for the increase in rate of instability will be that which increases the use of the primitive brain (thus removing the oversight and more highly evolved features of the prefrontal cortex). In short, the activation energy for pathways to violent action is given via role models, the access to the same kind of weaponry is increased, the triggers toward more primitive brain functions is increased, thus society is destabilised. To reverse the process alter the lore, decrease weaponry access, shift brain biochemistry in favour of lower stress to reactivate the prefrontal cortex. Currently, for example, America has increasing role modelling via the media coverage of mass shootings and this lowers the activation energy in stressed individuals to do the same, thus creating "runaway violence escalation." Conversely, in countries with limited firearms and weapons, in times of high social pressure the lack of access acts as a limiting factor.