Also, I'm curious just how many law abiding citizens there are in Britain who own guns. Because I know there are some. I was under the impression it was merely difficult to obtain them, not impossible. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
As of the 2003/04 figures, there were 122,076 firearms certificate holders in England and Wales, with 342,213 firearms. There were 569,948 shotgun certificate holders, with 1,372,712 shotguns.
It's difficult to get a certificate, but anyone eligible (no serious criminal record, history of major irresponisbile actions, mental illness) will get a certificate if they show a reason for wanting a gun (member of a club, land to hunt on, vermin control etc), and show they have somewhere secure to store it.
About 1 - 1.5% of applications are refused, and a tiny number of licences are revoked during the year (195 firearms certificates were revoked last year)
What's difficult to get are handguns. Handgun licences are impossible to obtain in most cases.
It's handguns that are the favoured weapon of criminals. According to the FBI, of the murder cases where they have received details of the type of weapon used, 7,701 were with handguns, 390 with rifles, 452 with shotguns. That's over 90%.
(about 70 people were murdered with guns in England and Wales last year)