https://medium.com/@tgof137/gun-ownership-rates-do-not-predi...
The studies in your link are after "controlling for poverty and urbanization", "after accounting for rates of aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, urbanization, alcohol consumption, and resource deprivation", etc.
I'm not a statistician enough to argue the methodology of the papers, but I'll say given that the trend only emerges after lots of adjustments, it makes me a little skeptical. At least, it would be pretty easy to let some bias or motivated reasoning slip in.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...
.svg){kind=link}
A criminal mind would use the tools available and a gun makes throwing rocks (chunks of lead) at people deadly more often than using your hand.
Look at criminal states, those leaders use armies instead of guns because they have an army available.
Overall crime, no, there is no correlation, but there is for guns used in crimes, which dramatically increases the rate of deaths and severity of those crimes.