More guns for a sick, sullen society?

One of my Twitter followers wondered when I would post something on guns and "gun control" in Latvia.  He linked to a Libertarian Party (?) position advocating more or less unrestricted gun ownership. The issue came up after the movie theater shooting in Riga on Saturday, February 19, when a well-educated, seemingly stable person with a legal weapons permit pumped four rounds into a father of four who had objected to his loud munching of either potato chips or popcorn and generally disruptive behavior during a showing of "The Black Swan".
The issue of gun laws in Latvia is a rather difficult one, because there is more too it than legalistic or libertarian arguments. Indeed, the murder suspect was a doctoral student in law who had written in a Latvian law journal arguing for very liberal gun laws like those in many US states. The man even advocated free ownership of fully automatic weapons.
I think the issue of firearms in any society is not so much a legal or philosophical issue (although there are important points in this regard) as it is about the fabric (or lack of it) in any particular society or country. There is merit, in the abstract, to the argument that an armed citizenry is theoretically better protected against an oppressive government, foreign invaders, or crime waves, than a society where only the state, criminals or invaders have guns. However, as "future scenarios" dictatorship, foreign invasion and wild-in-the streets crime are not likely or frequent occurrences if we take a relatively stable, democratic society as a starting point.
I would instead argue that the likelihood of tyranny or mad-dog crime has its roots in the nature of the society we are dealing with. The nature of the society, its "health" or whatever you want to call it, also determines the real consequences of any given weapons control policy. In short -- the reason there is relatively little gun violence (aside from a few spectacular incidents) in heavily armed Switzerland and Finland is because these societies do not have  a "gun culture".  Firearms are not used for everyday dispute resolution, they are generally not carried around on a day-to-day basis and while accessible, their only thinkable use is for military (Switzerland) or hunting (Finland, if I am not mistaken) purposes.
So we have the rather paradoxical situation that there is proliferation of legal military assault rifles in Switzerland, but almost no drive-by killings. In the US, fully-automatic weapons are banned, I believe, by federal law, yet there are places where killing and maiming with automatic weapons (drive-by style) is a routine occurence.
In armed countries with no "gun culture" we see the kind of outcomes that gun control advocates in the US and elsewhere want -- very little gun crime. In places with patchy, but sometimes severe gun laws (parts of the US with handgun restrictions, registration, etc.), we still see crazed gun crimes and automatic weapons firing on the streets. The difference is cultural and the lesson is that the nature of a particular society, its health or illness, trumps any laws or lack of them.
In Latvia, we do not have a "gun culture" and except for the actions of a psychopath in a movie theater, we have very few crimes involving firearms (indeed, many robberies are done with "objects resembling firearms" and there is little actual gunplay -- the recent battle between "good cops"  and "robber cops" in Jekabpils being an exception).  In this regard, Latvia feels safer than the US. Any everyday dispute between strangers here is unlikely to end in a shooting. In the US, one never knows. Of course, the crime news here in Latvia does carry stories of knifings and deadly beatings and other forms of non-firearm violence, but nothing can turn a bad situation to the worst possible than using a high-powered firearm.  Knives, clubs, even fists can kill, but a hollow-point 9mm round is very lucky if it DOESN'T kill.
My impression of Latvian society is that it is anomic (people trust no one), depressed, distressed and in a state of passive-aggressive anger (people vent their hostility by non-cooperation rather than direct action). I don't know if I would want to spread more firearms in such a societal environment. I fear there could be a quick adoption of a kind of gun culture, of using firearms to vent the simmering anger and the collective inferiority complex (left over from Soviet times and augmented by what has happened since) that one senses here.
Another matter is that most people are not trained or skilled at using firearms. This explains the number of accidental shootings in countries where guns proliferate. One can also imagine what would happen if there were more gun battles between untrained, poor marksmen in situations where rage, rather than cool training (as with professional military and police) was the driving force of a conflict.
It is difficult for me to imagine that allowing everyone in Latvia to own guns would result in the creation of a noble "armed citizenry" that used its weapons with restraint and skill, that intimidated both state authorities (the parts of the police that are little more than armed gangs) and criminals in order to maintain  both freedom and order. I just don't see that happening. More firearms in this society would simply increase the level and lethality of senseless violence.  That is, perhaps, an inadequate but best effort answer to the issue raised in a "tweet" last week.