To try and prevent someone getting hurt by folks firing rifles down the main street at noon we made guns illegal in the UK
No we didn't. We made them strictly controlled, which makes the ownership of them fairly difficult for law abiding responsible people, but easier than ever for criminals who don't care about the law anyway. Just as I said originally, people who disregard laws and regulations will do it anyway and the rest of us are inconvenienced. Hence the TSA et al