Quote from Cutten:
If American whites commit less murders, and American blacks are no worse than those in London, which portion of American society is committing the extra murders resulting in the USA having four times the per capita murder rate of the UK? The NYC murder rate is about 3 times that of London, despite similar size and similar ethnic composition, for example. The murder rate in Washington D.C. is 25 times that of London. So I don't buy your argument that the UK and US populations are comparable in respect to violent crime - whether white or black.
As for guns, it's a complex issue, and guns (and especially gun laws) by themselves clearly don't cause crime (they may actually reduce it via deterrence, if gun ownership and training is very widespread amongst the population). But I think it's indisputable that an armed criminal is going to be more dangerous and cause more fatalities, on average, than an unarmed criminal.
Regarding the comparison with Canada and Switzerland - firstly, Canada has a significantly higher murder and violent crime rate than the UK and Europe. Concealed carry is illegal there, and in Switzerland you can only carry in public with a permit, which is normally only given to security guards, private detectives, and people with a special reason to need to be armed. The general public are *not* permitted to walk around carrying loaded guns for general self-defence, even though almost every household has a rifle at home (for national defence). Secondly, in both those countries there is a much greater proportion of long guns rather than hand guns as in the US. Rifles and shotguns are obviously far less suited to criminal exploits than hand guns, due to ease of detection before the crime is committed.
In any case, this is getting away from the fact relevant to this discussion, which is that the American population has about 4 times the murder rate of Europe. If it is not widespread handgun availability causing it (and I didn't say that was the sole or even main cause, just that it is IMO a factor), then it is cultural and social factors specific to the US. Blacks in the UK murder at a far lower rate than in the US. So it is not racial factors inherent to blacks, but societal factors inherent to the country and area they grew up in and live in. A black person born and living in Washington D.C. is much more likely to kill or be killed than one growing up and living in London, Paris, Zurich, Rome etc.