There was a really good investigative article in the NYT a few years ago. I think I posted it in another gun debate. It explored how the gun death statistics are muddied in the US because many instances of, say, a young kid accidentally shooting a sibling or friend, for example, are actually classified as gun homicides and not gun accidents. At least 50% of them, IIRC. It was pretty illuminating. To me, it seems pretty simple—the more guns that are floating around, the more **** like that is going to happen.
One of the most salient points in the gun debate is how the NRA and the firearm industry (they're pretty much the same thing) have gone to the wall to prevent the accurate tallying of gun death statistics. Honestly, it seems like "toddler accidentally kills sister with gun" is more common than "homeowner protects family with firearm." I have kids. I think that, based on where I live, the odds of my protecting my family with a firearm are outweighed by the possibility of some innocent person being accidentally harmed by a gun in the household. You might calculate things differently, and that's fine. Own a gun, shoot it, and for the love of god, be responsible with it. You have a right to do so. But that doesn't mean that more guns = safety or that rational restrictions on the ownership of deadly weapon = tyranny. I think there's plenty of room for reasonable people to agree on this.