If both guys were armed. You just popped out your gun and they surrendered?
Your statistic is completely wrong and off reality, the gun violence in SK is atleast 10 times lower than in US. Than again your comparison is wrong either as you are comparing 300 million US and single europe country, comprising about 5 million people. How accurate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
Here is the problem with statistic cross comparing countries. They don't usually isolate variables that make massively differences in the data.
You could cross compare data sets, but here is how you would have to do it.
First find rates for violent crime (assault, murder, rape, and armed robbery). You need to then start doing dissection of that data and cross comparison of many factors.
1) Isolate how the crime was committed by choice of weapon (or bare handed).
2) Compare that to average incidents per year. Both in gross amount and per capita.
3) Isolate where incidents are occurring. Chances are, the vast majority of all crime in any country are at high population areas. IE big cities.
4) Measure against other factors in cross comparison for massive populations (1mil +), high pops (500k+), and high pops (200K+). These other factors will include: poverty levels. Relative size of crime areas as well as poverty areas. Ethnic and cultural diversity areas. Education levels also play a major role.
Now you are starting to get in actual useable data when you start making those kinds of cross comparison. But I'll save you the trouble as many people have done much of this work. The answers are these.
1) Regardless of country the vast majority of crime happens in higher population centers. The more people, the higher the raw number and per capita rates of violent crime.
2) In areas with severe economic barriers, lots of very poor compared to middle-class and rich will have higher rates of crime. Basically those with nothing to lose typically cause more crimes.
3) Areas that have severe ethnic or cultural differences suffer higher rates of crime. The more "homogenous" a given group of people are the lower the crime rate.
4) The higher average of a populations education level has reduced violent crime. Not always reduced overall crime as some areas with higher education levels may have increased white collar, non violent crimes.
5) When cross comparing all the crimes rates with the data from the first 3 points, several key factors emerge. These are as follows:
5a) Increased access to firearms for a given population is inversely proportional to violent crime rate in most forms of violent crimes. Meaning if people are armed to defend themselves they are more likely to prevent a crime against them from happening.
5b) Increased access to firearms means that crimes that do happen also have an increased likelyhood to have a firearm used in the crime.
5c) In areas with severe limits upon guns for a populace, crime rates sharp spikely. The choice of weapon used in those crimes shifts from guns to a different weapon of choice depending upon the cultural areas. For example more rural areas tend to have farm tools used in more crimes where guns are restricted while more urban areas would use knives of blunt objects of some sort.
When you look at GOOD data statistic that isolate variables for better cross comparison, it becomes abundantly clear on a few points. Want to reduce violent crime? These are the major factors in doing so.
1) Thin out the population. (this is hard to do if not impossible)
2) Increase the average education level of a populace. This also does many other good things for a population.
3) Reduce poverty levels and decrease unemployment. People that no longer have idle hands, something to lose, and something to look forward to every day in their lives don't commit violent crimes usually. Increased education is directly proportional to this one too.
4) Create a more homogenous population (this is hard to do if not impossible in most places)
5) Let law abiding citizens defend themselves with guns.
That's about it. The fun thing is that the US has been doing all 4 things over the last 4 decades and it has SHOWN in our crime statistics. They are WAY down across the board and go lower every year. Compare that to other countries that aren't seeking to do something along the lines of the 4 points listed above and those countries have steady or even increased violent crime. Numbers 2, 3, and 5 are key factors that any country can implement to reduce crime rates.
The thing to notice when looking at the better cross comparison data that isolates various variables is that when guns are scarce, other weapons/methods are used instead. Removal of access to guns for any population has never been shown to reduce violent crimes anywhere. At least from countries that report enough data that allows cross comparison of crime data based on the isolate variables I've posted about.
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