#1. It's certainly not comparing apples to apples for two reasons:

A. I'm comparing a city that requires gun ownership to a city that forbids it.
B. If you do the math and use per capita rates, you will see that it is a comparison worth making.

#2. A shotgun will actually penetrate less than some popular handgun rounds DEPENDING on the load you have in the shotgun. For personal protection in close quarters, the shotgun really doesn't need to be loaded down for bear with 3" magnum slugs or something. Some buckshot is more than enough. Hell, I wouldn't want to get hit with bird shot at any distance, let alone a few feet. This is the reason why a shotgun is sometimes a good choice for home defense. My shotguns have buckshot in them. I don't see a need for anything more than that.

BTW, they make frangible ammo for just about every caliber of handgun and rifle out there. It is specifically designed NOT to over penetrate and spend all it's energy in the target and nothing else. These are excellent personal defense loads, but that's it's ONLY use as it's not good for anything else. Ammo usually can be gauged to not over penetrate in just about any defense caliber.

#3. This is a function of perception. If the bad element PERCEIVES or THINKS that there is a CHANCE someone on the other side of that door they're about to kick in has a gun to defend themselves, the chances exponentially jump UP that he/she will NOT kick the door down in order to move onto an easier target.

#4. Numbers are numbers folks. A drop of 75% directly due to the passage of that law, eventhough we all KNOW not everybody went out and bought a gun to fulfill that law, is outstanding regardless. Look at it this way....DC and every other gun controlled city's crime rate has gone UP vs down eventhough they have tighter gun laws than any other cities in the country. So again, numbers don't lie. If the crime rate goes UP when you do something you swear was going to make it go DOWN, who's to blame? Use that same logic in the town of Kennesaw. What changed between 1982 and 1983 there? The new mandatory gun law. They didn't triple their police force. Actually their population had boomed from 5K to over 20K in a short period of time. So what made crime rate drop a whopping 75% in just ONE YEAR, and yet another 45% in the very next year after that???

Now look at DC in comparison. THE most restrictive city in just about everything. Hell, they won't even let you use a damn radar detector there. Freaking the worst crime rate in the whole country. Obviously gun control doesn't work, and it's the poster child of why not.

Besides, everyone has to remember that gun control laws only work for idiots like US who ABIDE by the laws. Criminals don't care. They will get their guns illegally, so they wipe their ass with laws. It's like punishing the good kids in a classroom for what 1 or 2 bad ones do. How's that make sense? It doesn't, and that is exactly why gun control will never work. It punishes good instead of bad.