Bugsy, the powers that want to limit and eventually stamp out civilian gun ownership would never legalise mace or tasers.

JSP, you are right about the checks and balances required to obtain a licence and gun/s. I come from a farming background, and as such have grown up with guns around. All licenced and registered of course. I agree that the requirements as they stand are stringent enough. No need to make them any harder. The sad fact of the matter is that you cannot legislate against, nor regulate all bad deeds. That's why we have jails. There is always going to be some cowboy lunatic. The idea should be to minimise the chances of some idiot ending up with a gun (legal or otherwise), and then minimise the impact if he does. Our gun laws do quite a reasonable job at that. Does it mean that there will never be another massacre? Nope. But the chances are greatly reduced.

As for advocating staying at home and never going out, I do no such thing. But I dont choose to walk through Kings Cross in the early hours of the morning either. Likewise there are a number of other suburbs and places that I would avoid either entirely or at specific times. That's what I mean about not placing yourself in danger. Home invasions happen - I have been on the receiving end of one. Not fun. But I still take issue with the self-defence argument.

JSP... you've indulged in a bit of selective interpretation there. Allow me to do the same. (Wikipedia: Crime in Washington DC)

"Since 1993, crime rates in Washington dropped consistently for over ten years"

"Critics using this example fail to mention that it is relatively easy to obtain guns in neighboring states with laxer gun restriction laws, although it is also true that this very fact shows that the laws have no effect. The inflow of guns purchased outside the city in states where gun restriction laws are less stringent compromises the city's own strict regulations"

JSP: In a nation with countless thousands of unlicensed guns and other items that evaded destruction post-buy-back, doesn’t that tell you that we are not in danger from guns? Four wheel drives are more dangerous. Many more people are killed by 4WDs than by guns.

There may or may not be lots of guns out there. I don't really see how that is a reason to allow more.
It sure as hell doesn't give me any reason not to be concerned about guns.
4wd argument is spurious. By that logic, we should ban knives, hot water and electricity.
Guns, especially handguns, are designed to shoot people. I can't see why we would allow looser laws.

As I said before, the current system isn't bad - I'm in favour of the primary industries having access to firearms. Sporting shooters, less so, but I can countenance it.
Handguns, no. There's no worthwhile reason for them. As I pointed out earlier, the self defence argument is somewhat collapsed by the argument about crime - you can point to washington as one piece, but to do so is to ignore the entire American puzzle, when compared to other nation's gun deaths.

But do we all agree that any person has the right to defend themselves against unlawful attack, even to the point of killing their attacker if the threat is great enough?

TRTL, hand guns are also used in sport shooting events. I see no problem with them from this viewpoint. Also you could argue that a farmer who has to dispatch an injured animal would find it much easier to use a pistol than a longarm (currently they are not allowed to use a pistol for this, I am just posing the argument).

Guns are not designed to shoot people, they are designed to shoot things. Some guns (such as assault rifles) ARE designed to shoot people. I have the same problems with these as you do. But plenty of guns are designed to shoot other things (animals, for whatever reason, targets etc). Saying guns are designed to shoot people is as accurate as saying bullbars are designed to hit pedestrians.

Is Mise, I get your point, but only fully agree if we lived in a lawless society - then we would need lethal force to protect ourselves. Our society has not yet sunk to that level. While-ever we retain a reasonably law-abiding society, the ability of any members to use lethal force against another should be limited. Yes, that may mean that some innocent people will die as a result of being assaulted and unable to defend themselves, but arming all citizens is a step that I just dont see desirable.

The evidence seems to be that the buybacks did nothing useful; on the contrary, they resulted in a net destruction of personal property with almost no benefit measurable. The most pertinent issue is that news media were and are partly culpable for school shootings and gun massacres, by creating incentives and teaching how. Perversely, the reason for a pause in massacres is most likey the media blitz about gun laws over 1996 which reversed their earlier message that had created copycat massacres. See http://www.class.org.au/ideas_kill.htm for more on this.

The main reason for declines in gun death seems to be a shift in suicide method from guns to other means, plus falls in overall suicide. Heavy funding of suicide prevention is therefore likely to produce benefits mistakenly counted for the 'gun buyback'.

I believe that harmonising state laws, background checks and safe storage have probably been beneficial. You can see a mechanism for those to produce an effect. Waiting periods, banning semiautos and many other measures seem to be just raising barriers to entry of the sport.

Time to change the laws: keep what works and throw out what does little good.