No, the police, who retain the guns, have the real advantage. It's harder to kill someone with a knife or a club than a gun; a defender has some viable defenses against hand weapons, including the obvious one: "Keep your distance from psychos who carry knives or bloodstained baseball bats around in public, and discretely call the police when you see someone carrying an illegal weapon".

The object of guns is to make everyone, even the weakest old lady, as strong as the strongest attacker, thus either deterring criminals or giving the people being attacked at least an equal chance at survival.

Guns favor attack; not defense. It's not impossible to dodge or block a knife attack. You can stop a knife strike by blocking the knife arm, or block with common household items like brooms, glass bottles, pool cues, knitting needles, folding chairs, etc). Same goes for clubs, like bats. But you can't stop bullets, unless you happen to be wearing a bulletproof vest (which are, ironically, illegal in some states!)

If some wierdo wanders up towards my grandma with a knife or a bat, and acts all threatening towards her, me and all my buddies will beat the crap out of him before he gets near her, and he'll go to jail for assault with a deadly weapon. If he's got a gun, and wants to hurt her for some twisted reason, he'll just blow her away before her shakey hands can even begin to pull the handgun from her purse, shoot me as I draw on him, and then some of my friends may well die to friendly fire as they all unload on the homicidal bastard.

I'd rather the psycho didn't get a chance to take me and my friends with him when he dies; but that's what raising deadliness threshold can do. Escalation serves only to provide greater violence.

Ask yourself, would you feel better about your odds of survival if Iran (and every other nation on Earth, including the ones run by total psychos) was armed with nuclear weapons; or if no one had them? And if you don't, why is this military escalation different from the escalation from a society with minimal guns to one full of them?