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Romany, if the main use of guns by young men was suicide, they would need only about 150-200 bullets a year. Somehow the good guys burn millions of rounds every year in Australia.

HRS, the generalisation that men like guns does not apply to you. Do you think it possible that given the opportunity to let a few shots off at a safe target, or appreciate some high-quality craftsmanship, the generalisation would apply to a majority of males? It certainly applies to many females too.

Jayb, you seem to be using the rhetoric of urbanisation to deny people freedom to even consider they could have reasons to enjoy shooting. Would you use the same logic to deny them the freedom to go trailbiking, skiing or horseriding? You seem to presume that people should be forced to prove they are not insane. In reality, free citizens can be presumed mentally competent unless there is evidence to the contrary. The present licensing system does a good job of screening.

As for Ponder who said "Brian.....the purpose of a gun is to KILL!"

This is a facile idea. Guns have many purposes other than killing people, and in fact this purpose is only important in a symbolic way. (I presume your scare-cap shouting KILLL!1! implies you mean people, because we kill animals as part of normal life and don't need scare caps for sausages or cockroaches).

There are maybe 3.5 million guns in Australia legally held by civilians. Not a single one in civilian hands is there for the purpose of killing people. NOT ONE. Read the firearms acts of each state and territory and show me where I am wrong.

Either the police are colluding in an astonishing fraud, or there are much more important reasons we own guns.

With drug's like ice becoming more prevalent and the increase in violent attack's recently passing self defence law's should be a high priority in this country. Allowing law abiding citizen's to carry handgun's for self defence use is the best way as long as it is regulated strictly and each incident involving a handgun being discharged investigated thouroughly, due to the fact that it send's a much stronger message to the bad guy's. It will make them stop and think 'i could get shot dead if i do this' compared with 'i could get tasered or pepper sprayed if i do this'. And plus it is possible to build up an immunity to pepper spray just ask any US Marine it is part of their training.So a violent criminal could just aquire their own pepper spray and use it on themself enough time's that it didnt have much effect on them anymore. They could likely do the same with a tazer till it got to the point where they could still function close to 90% after being tasered.

Never mind about women's protection Brian - let's give guns to babies! They need protection too!

But seriously, there may indeed be "good arguments for allowing the carrying of firearms for self defence in Australia", but none of them appear in this article.

It's a curious thing that while much comment on the US Second Amendment focuses on the phrase about "the right of the people to keep and bear arms", comparatively little attention is paid to the purpose of this Amendment...it's for maintaining "[a] well regulated militia".

Get it? Well *regulated*? Not a free-for-all. Not for over-the-counter semi-automatic purchase. Not for gunslinging joggers.

Moreover, the purpose of such a militia was to protect the people from tyrannical *governments* - both domestic and foreign. The militia was *not* intended for individuals' personal protection or to act as a vigilante force. The founding Fathers wouldn't have bothered setting up the Judicial Branch of government if they intended the "well-regulated militia" to be its own self-defence force.

And whoever wants a gun to protect themselves from ice addicts, your feeling of security will last about as long as it takes for that ice addict to get their hands on a gun...then you'd *really* have something to be frightened of.

A young man lost his life to a enraged woman with drugs and alcohol in her system, this month when she ran him over, for committing the terrible crime of throwing a chip at her car and maybe giving her some lip.
If she had a gun, how many of that group of young people would have lost their lives. On paper before this incident she may have been angel and allowed access to guns in America for 'protection'.

The bloke who shot a teenager on his property when the kid was running away permanently injuring him is probably also claiming he was protecting himself and property.

More guns in our society - no thanks

Society is focussed on dangerous people mainly because of the pervasive media etc who like to dramatise and make us think there's a bogeyman around every corner. Look at all the cop shows, forensic stuff, it’s everywhere! The newswires are plundered for the most shocking and awful from around the globe and then it’s delivered in it’s simulated blood and gore (except for the news that’s usually real enough) to your lounge room every night in an instant. We hear complaints that we are becoming less shocked and more immune to this stuff. I say it makes us more afraid, we are numb and we don’t fully realise.

So what happens when we arm people? The temptation of deadly force first (get 'em before they get you) is the result of people’s fear first and foremost. Guns don't kill people, people who are fundamentally afraid of other people do. This of course does not include the criminal element, who in reality we are really unlikely to come across on a regular basis. All of these mad “roid ragers” and psychotic ice bingers are in all reality very unlikely to get you on the way to the shops on a Saturday morning. Yes it is a reality for a very few, but not for the majority of society. They are not waiting on every street corner for you and your kids, but when that’s what you see every day in the media then that’s what you will think. There are billions of people on the earth, some ordinary, some really good whom we don’t hear about and the statistically very, very few who are sad mad and bad that we do. So we give people handguns, because they are afraid of other people, so everyone who is around you (which includes me) then becomes a potential target whether you consciously hold them in that regard or not.

Arming people is not the answer.