"Richard Hertz" wrote:

There is a lot of evidence that shows that violent crime diminishes when
people are allowed to defend themselves (read - arm themselves)
Places that ban handguns usually experience higher rates of violent crime.

Yes, people will always try to do bad things, and wouldn't it be nice to be
able to DEFEND yourself against them? I happen to think so.

This is a load of crap. Handguns are very rare in Australia. The
papers here are talking about a gangland war that has broken out here.
Large rewards are being offered by the police to catch the people
involved. This is a result of something like 24 people being killed in
the last 6 YEARS. When 24 people in 6 years is significant, I don't
think the rate of violent crime is high.

Americans seem to have no concept of what it is like to live in a
largely gun free society. They view safety as having a gun, and hoping
that if it comes to the worst they will be able to shoot the other guy
before they get shot. In Australia, you don't have a gun and go around
pretty confident that no-one will get shot at all.