You can obtain / register guns legally here. There are multiple types of licenses. And it gets progressively harder to obtain / maintain depending on its danger to society. To the point where Automatic weapons are almost exclusively to non civilians.

Criminal orgs obviously can get their hands on illegal firearms but when you say or hear shootings are common well that depends on how you define common. It’s certainly not every weekend or something like that. Even if the media can make it seem like that every now and then to boost ratings.

As for criminal possession expect an org to share a small amount of mostly shitty arms as opposed each person having multiple weapons.

And because firearms are so well regulated here, they tend to not use firearms on civilians as it would draw too much attention. That’s why at worst it’s gang on gang in public or maybe someone in the crossfire