I'm a little on the fence. I think it's essential to keep the people as armed as the government, but clearly there's a limit to that, as we don't want people running around with nukes. And yet, what's to stop people from doing that anyway? The only thing this process seems to lead to is the inevitable overmilitarization of the world, with the people militarizing in order to protect themselves against the government, and the government trying to protect itself against the people.
A gun is also a very different tool from a knife, or a hammer, or most other potential weapons. Each of these things is a useful tool for other things, many of which are constructive. But a gun can't be used in a truly constructive manner; it's purely a destructive tool, and either it's destroying cans, which is fun, or locks, which is useful, or people, which is probably a thing to try and avoid. For sure the best way to avoid gun deaths is NOT by driving gun sales into a black market. I don't know what other way there is to control guns, perhaps a firearms tax fund used for voluntary buybacks, but I'm open to potential answers