[CamB]

I pretty much come from Todd's viewpoint and I'm gonna focus on handguns. Rifles and shotguns - lots of hunters in New Zealand. Probably quite a few people who like target shooting too. Good on them I say.

But as someone living in a country where handguns are used only by:

- some police (heavily restricted)
- armed forces (I think)
- a negligible # of criminals (they usually end up with a sawn-off shotgun if they have anything)
- collectors and Olympians

I never see or even think about handguns. As far as I am concerned they only really exist for shooting people (or targets/collecting).

From what I've seen in certain US states you can wander around with a handgun on your hip as long as your permit is ok with that. Why is that deemed socially acceptable? I'm pretty sure if I wandered around with a sword on my hip people would think I was a nut...

I'll put it another (slightly tongue in cheek) way. If I were to mouth off at some punk in the street here, there would be any number of things that might happen, but having a gun pulled on me is not one of them. Handguns are just way too tightly controlled here, and I think society is better for it.

I think those stats I linked to above show that in NZ, most of the deaths caused by guns are suicide or accidental.

Tabs - yeah, maybe Americans are more violent (the stats I linked to showed that too). If there were no handguns, I figure at worst less people get shot and more people get knifed or pummeled.

And I would be keen to see some evidence that gun crimes are increasing in Aussie (rather than hearsay).