I believe violent crime, including gun crimes, in Britain has overtaken and passed the US level.

Nowhere near it, I'm afraid. Guns were involved in 566 serious or fatal injuries in the UK in 2006/7, down on 645 the previous year. Scale that up to the US poulation figure and that'd be around 3,400.

I haven't got the figures for 2006/7 in the USA, but in 1999 there were 28,874 gun related fatalities, and in 2000 there were 75,685 non-fatal gunshot injuries.