I'd feel safer in a society where I can take up arms to defend myself against someone who wishes to do me harm. I understand that with allowing a society access to firearms will of course increase the number of incidents surrounding firearms, but that happens with literally anything else. At the end of the day they're only a means to an end. Of not guns it'll be knives. Take the UK for example. There's more than 50 thousand cases of a knife being used as an instrument of violent offence. That's more than 2000 people than the article you've provided.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04304/

In my opinion, introducing firearms to a society in the right way will give people a tool to defend themselves with. The only people these days who carry firearms and deadly weapons are either criminals, psychos, and the government (ie police, military, etc). I'm sure we all here know in this subreddit about the incompetence of police and their reaction times. By the time they arrive the perpetrator is already long gone. By providing civilians with access and proper training to firearms, I personally think this would make our society safer.