"Richard Hertz" wrote:

It is not a load of crap. See John Lott's papers and book(s) studying the
subject.

I don't know of the papers, I am just speaking from the experience of
living in a country where guns are uncommon.

Also, handgun laws are inneffective (especially here in the US). Criminals
are criminals. They have handguns regardless of the laws.

In the US, yes. I think that is largely a result of the fact that so
many people have guns, and therefore they are easy to come by. In
Australia, very few people have guns so they are much more difficult
to come by. Since no-one is likely to have a gun, your common or
garden criminal is unlikely to carry one either. If you interrupt
someone robbing your house, the likely result is that you scare the
**** out of each other and the criminal runs away.

I read that because of the rarity, a black market gun here sells for
about 4 times the price of the same gun through a gun dealer.
Guessing, a gun is probably about $1000 which would make the "street
price" $4000. How many criminals are going to pay that for something
they don't really need? Most criminals are desperate for cash for
drugs etc, if (guessing again) a hit of heroin is $20 the gun would
buy 200 hits of heroin. I think your average criminal here would be
more likely to sell the gun for the cash.

A while back the "weapon" of choice for armed robberies seemed to be
the syringe. "Give me your money or I'll prick you" :-)

Of course there are criminals with guns here. Mostly however they seem
to be higher up in the chain, and are unlikely to be robbing people on
the street or in their houses.