But remember the incident where the Japanes exchange student who had recently arrived in USA, thought he could go trick-or-treat'ing on Halloween but got blasted in the face with a .44 handgun by a classically paranoid southern baptist Christian family man. His comment was - that this evil creature knocked on our door on halloween & would go away when we asked.

But, I have owned many guns in the past (more than you are ever likely to). I do worry about both NZ & Aust banning guns from us citizens when criminals have no compunction about having them (& get usually get slapped on the wrist when caught with them).

All I am saying is that your ideal of the responsible law-abiding citizen may be a fantsy, reality is more like a paranoid Christian (go read some books on psychiatry on what draws people together in relgion) who sees evil in the most innocent of faces (he had the devil in him).

Also for statistics look at the US stats for who killed who with what gun - the majority of murders are as a result of people using a rifle or gun intended to protect themselves to kill someone they are related to, or they themselves get killed by their own gun because they didn't really know how handle it well. Many more deaths are a result of kids finding Mom or Pops 'protection' and killing themselves or some other innocent as they emulate TV.

Nice to live in a world based on theory.....