I apologize for the harsh answer, my original post was a bit confusing as you explained. The first part of my post was talking about castle doctrine and why I like it and don't want the yahoo I was responding to moving to Arizona and donating to politicians who would try and increase gun control. I ended the first paragraph with a sentence backing up why I hold the position I do.
My second paragraph just went into more details as to why I like having access to firearms due to the dangers where I live, I have seen video on the news caught on security cameras of home invasions where multiple mexican's are storming a house with AR-15's, I wouldn't want to be stuck with calling the police as my only option in that situation, I would want a firearm in hand. I did not intend to try and prove the crime rate is lower in AZ due to having less gun restrictions but if we enacted restrictions similar to Chicago (or IL in general, you are required to have a firearm owner ID card to buy 22 bullets and other BS in that corrupt state) or Washington DC I wouldn't be suprised to see crime increase even more.
I don't know why your criminal rates are lower in France, but I highly doubt they are lower due to stricter gun control. Of course gun crimes may be lower due to stricter gun control but I would definitely love to see some proof that stricter gun control has lowered all crime across the board. I am basing that stance on the stats I have seen in the US for locations that have increased gun control, the crime rate seems to always go up, I have even seen this be the case with locations outside the US. Also, to me it just makes sense that if a criminal knows the person he wants to commit a crime against has the chance of being armed with a firearm they would less likely choose to commit the crime compared to if they know nearly 100% that the person does not have a firearm, just the chance of having a firearm would be a deterant to me personally. Whatever floats your boat though, I like my gun rights and you seem to like your gun restrictions, to each their own.
One more thing and that is I think a large part of the crime in AZ is due to illegal immigrants, it is a fact drug cartels recruit them for crimes such as the kidnappings and human/drug smuggling and suprisingly after the US started enforcing some stricter illegal immigrant rules and also jobs were less available the illegal immigrant populations fell by nearly a third in Arizona and crime rates fell drastically AND quickly too. In fact, in the first few months after the illegal immigrant populations fell crime was down 25% in Phoenix and 19% in Mesa which I found very interesting and also why I am for more policies to lower the illegal immigrant population. I have no problem with immigrants, in fact I welcome anyone to the USA who wants to come here peacefully, just do it legally of course. Here is a link to an article in the Phoenix Business Journal talking about the crime decreases:
http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2009/07/27/daily89.html