The *VAST* majority of criminals here don't have access to guns.

If the laws didn't allow such easy access to guns, then there's a very high chance "criminals" (being anybody breaking the law) wouldn't have been armed with anything serious to begin with, thus negating the requirement of others' access to guns.

I actually don't massively disagree that in a place with easy access to weaponary, that having weapons is reasonable to defend yourself. I'm more a proponant of not requiring it in the first place, because nobody else has it either.

Sure, major criminal networks will have access to guns; that's the case here in Melbourne, we see effectively mafia style hits, it's happened a bit lately.. but they're shooting each other so who gives a fuck? They're not storming office functions or schools.

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I also don't buy the whole "well if they didn't have guns, they'd kill each other some other way" argument. It's really fucking hard to kill 14 people at a party with a knife.