Is Mise said- "One wonders, however, how the Lindt Cafe incident could have happened; the firearm involved was unregistered, illegally modified and what's more, banned under the law; failure."

Answer- With respect- I think you are suggesting here that firearm crimes are often committed using firearms that are outside the legal framework- either stolen or illegally imported arms. We'd need to check the statistics on this of course. This would imply that tight gun control could reduce access to stolen arms used to commit crime but might need to be combined with better import measures. A tightening of gun control could just lead to greater illegal imports.

Issy, you put forward a complete fallacy, more guns equals less gun crime, and the inverse, less guns equals more gun crime, to simplistic. I would agree certain social conditions, such as the level of poverty and inequality, not related to the number of guns, are very much contributing factors to violent behaviour. What guns do is facilitate the shocking end result of all that pent up injustice, be it real or imagined by the perpetrator.

What is in the mind of the perpetrator of mass shootings is that he believes he has been so grievously wronged by someone, or some group, that he is fully justified, or believes he has no alternative, other than to commit mass murder. Making guns easily and readily available to such a perverted soul, is like giving petrol, and a box of matches to a pyromaniac.

Paul,

"Issy, you put forward a complete fallacy, more guns equals less gun crime, and the inverse, less guns equals more gun crime, to simplistic"

Bravo!!

You are starting to see the light, for years gun control advocates have had a mantra that "More guns mean more crime" and, as you say, this is just as simplistic as "More guns mean less crime", welcome aboard!!

However, the country with the highest murder rate in the world has tough gun laws.
Look up Jamaica.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Jamaica
(looks like Green heaven).

and Ezhil said, "After all guns are not essential items for any one's living and survival",

Tell that one to a farmer whose land adjoins one of our feral carnivorous animal breeding grounds, our National Parks.

Ezhil, have you ever worked cattle, especially in Western Australia, where stockmen are allowed to carry heavy pistols for protection against scrub bulls?

No doubt most of you would've heard of the awful murder/suicide of three people in Sydney this morning? A thirteen year old girl, her 16 yo brother, both allegedly murdered by their 67 yo estranged father, who allegedly shot himself after having committed the aforementioned deed.

Interestingly, according to media reports, he allegedly committed the murder using two pistols, both of which were licensed to him. The facts are - the mother returned home, to find both her children deceased. Police attended, and acting on information received, police attended another premises, whereupon the estranged husband and the alleged murderer, had apparently committed suicide.

Moreover, this Domestic issue was all over, a long running dispute dealing with 'access and custody' of the children. I've never had much faith in the family law Court, they're far too emotive, and most of those individuals who preside on the family law Bench are poorly trained to deal with such dangerously emotive issues. Yet who suffers at the end of the day - the children of course?

Giving arms to to those who are at risk from animals is quite different from the general situation in a society.Even killing animals is not accepted by animal lovers.Instead of paying attention to the social conditions hat provoke illegal firing let us not arm the immature and the misguided which results in human as well as other catastrophes.Giving arms licence to all who apply for it citing some bogus reasons is sheer misuse of scientific inventions.Let us try to move to a better evolutionary level.Defensive strategies should not compromise on human values.

ezhil,

You said,"After all guns are not essential items for any one's living and survival."

"Giving arms to those who are at risk from animals is quite different from the general situation in a society"

Didn't you mean that which you first said?

How about the farmer protecting his livestock from Government owned feral predators?