The paradox of gun "control"

Why does it seem to be not widely known by the general public, that states with the most lax gun control laws also happen to be the states with lowest incidence of gun related crime? I went to San Antonio a few years ago when my stepson graduated boot camp at Lackland AFB in Texas. I noticed that every restaurant and bar had a sign at or near the entrance saying leave your guns outside or no guns allowed on premises....At first I thought this was some little local inside joke about Texans and cowboys.... I later found out that Texas (at least at that time) had the highest percentage of population that owned firearms, of all 50 states.....They also had the lowest incidence of gun related crime of the states. The listing went on and almost without exception, the states with the highest rate of legal gun ownership had the lower rates of gun crime. Among the highest rates of crime involving firearms were New York, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, virtually every one of these states have some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country. These rates of crime were per capita not literal.

While gun control advocates have always sneered at the saying "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns", there would appear to be more than a bit of truth to it.

First off let me state for the record I am not a member of the NRA, nor have I ever been, nor do I have any plans to become one. I do not advocate the sale of military grade weaponry (Automatic weapons, armor piercing ammunition etc) to the general public. I can't for the the life of me come up with any reasonable need to have a gun that can fire 400 rounds a minute and stop a 20 ton truck dead in it's tracks.

But it did get me to thinking. Think about it for a minute before you start getting all anti gun on me here ok?  There are very strict gun laws on the books in most states. Some states make it exceedingly difficult to obtain permits for anything other than hunting type rifles. The penalties for violating these laws in many states is mandatory jail time. But the fact of the matter is that 90+% of the crimes committed with guns are perpetrated by people who have them illegally anyway. In other words for the most part, you don't have to worry about the guy who owns his gun legally, it's the one who got it illegally that's gonna be dangerous. Precisely what will another law do to stop him? He's already flagrantly violationg at least one gun law. Does anyone really think that a new law will change his mind?

Also IF you do have an illegal weapon, but you know that 80% of the people in your state have a license to carry as well, aren't you gonna be a little less likely to cavalierly start pointing it at someone? Could be that other guy is packing and he might just be a good shot too.

Just thought I'd toss this out and see what others think.