There are a lot of different things that make america more dangerous to young people than guns. The culture is less united, more individualistic and more violent. 1950s US had equal access to guns as today, and probably a higher per capita gun ownership rate, and had fewer murders and suicides. Why stick to western industrial nations? A gun ban is a gun ban, less guns per capita is less opportunity to use a gun no matter if the government has nukes or not. “The West” is an arbitrary distinction here. America is not like Europe, it is more like the rest of the Americas culturally and historically, all of which have higher murder rates than Europe, and all of which have less guns per capita and more restrictive gun laws than the US. Some of them even have higher murder rates.
There are several countries in the world with higher rates of murder with less guns per capita, almost all of which have much stronger gun restrictions, and at least one with a higher suicide rate. Why don’t we figure out what that odd line is that differentiates them from Europe. I highly doubt it’s gun availability.
If you count US states individually rather than aggregating the whole federation of 50 sovereign states with their own gun laws, and 350 million people, which would be akin to aggregating the EU as one country and so less accurate, the state of Maine is safer than any European country. It has some of the least restrictive gun laws anywhere in the US.