...which are themselves also meaningless unless they also factor yet other context like all kinds of other social and economic factors, total population, population density, possible translation to other crimes using other tools or taking other forms, and other undesirable outcomes. It's kind of like a form of externalizing costs. Maybe bathtub suicides and protection racket shakedowns and stabbings went up but if you only pick one number and say it went down, or is less than someone else's while using absolute numbers instead of percentages and in context,..

If you only care about one number and it's so important that none of those other factors matter, then you shouldbe advocating for universal drugged stupor, which would garantee the lowest possible number of gun deaths. I don't see how you can possibly place your own desire to have a clear head and some sense of agency over yourself above the life of even one innocent child.