"death in auto accidents, as well as the number of drunk drivers on the road, have decreased..."

"public awareness" This guy did lot in terms of public awareness to lessen gun accidents.

"better designed cars" they are trying to design guns so that to prevent accidents and crime. It's just not that easy.

Guns are whole lot safer these days than what they used to be in 17th century. It's just lot older tech than cars, so most of the improvements are not in recent memory.

IMO there is no way to solve gun violence problem. You can only lessen it.

In my country they have "draconian gun law" and it failed to protect us from two school shootings. What good our gun law has done is this "year of mercy". In 1998 police gave six moth long period to give in any unregistered firearm without punishment, the result was 17,000 confiscated firearms. Most of them went to scrap, some to museums and few we're auctioned to licensed firearm holders. This practice was found to be so good that now they have a permanent law that if you report yourself an unregistered firearm, you don't get punished. Common criminals in Finland do not carry firearms.

The thing is that well kept firearm is good to go forever. Colt 1911 from the year 1911 can be just as deadly than one from year 2012. Your country lacks any flux away from market for guns. So any malfunctioning, ugly, old or impractical gun just gets resold until it ends up in the wrong hands. I think it's to some extent the same problem game designers have when they try to prevent inflation of money in on-line role playing games.

But I don't think you should do everything like we have. Police officers are not allowed to concealed carry when off duty. Same goes for military personnel. People can't buy a pistol if they don't belong to "shooting club". What if your local shooting club is full of neo-Nazi idiots? That's the end of good hobby because you aren't racist enough.