[Chris the Chees]

The UK has some of the strictest gun control laws out of any democracy, so why does it still have lots of violent crime?

Well, I would point to an inferior criminal justice system and urban areas of relative poverty and a low standard of living condition. But the point is that is the same as the US and the violent crime rates match.

but it has higher rates of other crimes than the United States.

Indeed it does. But that proves the folly of your argument. If Britain has a more violent society, then why did we see only 765 murders between 2005/6, including some 52 people murdered in a terrorist attack (which accounts for nearly 7% of that total); while the US saw 17,034 murders in 2005? Thats around 22 times more murders in the US than the UK, and the population is only five times larger. Well the answer is that our eminently violent criminals don't have the easy access to deadly fire arms that America's criminals do. Its that simple. Had our criminals had access to the millions of firearms that are open to the American criminal, no doubt ours would be just as murderous. As it happens, it isn't so they don't.

Sources: -

United States Crime Rates 1960 - 2006

Crime Statistics for England and Wales - Long-term national recorded crime trend: Homicide

And I would much rather be mugged than shot. I've lived through the former, I doubt I would the latter.

I don't think banning honest citizens from owning guns is the answer. Criminals will always be able to get guns from the black market.

No, they won't. It is simple case of supply and demand. If you remove guns from a society, then that cripples the supply, thus raising the price on the black market. Criminals are forced to go through the highly risky and expensive process of illegally smuggling weapons into the country, which raises the price for the buyers making those criminals able to buy such weapons not only highly connected but also with money to spend. The other method of acquiring weapons is by reactivating deactivated weapons or activating replica weapons. The result of that is that the criminal firing the weapon is unlikely to hit a barn door from spitting distance. In other words, if you ban guns then you vastly cripple the supply of weapons and as such the number of criminals in possession of them; and that is exactly what has happened in the UK.

Isn't that all the more reason to allow honest citizens to own a gun for protection?

No, because if the honest citizens are able to carry guns then, as has already been shown in this thread, honest citizens are all the more likely to be the victims of gunshot wounds.