Given the only mass shooting in Australia in almost 30 years, the question of guns, gun ownership, and needs/desires to own them is in question

I've never handled a gun except once. I fired a .22 rifle once and once only in my youth when visiting an uncle who had friends that owned a rural property. I was shooting at a line of coke cans.

Despite that I have never had a desire to shoot guns, or have a gun license, or own any guns, and that's never changed. Guns are designed for one thing - to kill.

Here in Australia we want freedom from guns (and religion), not freedom of guns (and religion).

Plenty of Australian's have gun licenses and legally own guns for legitimate reasons, including military and law enforcement, rural landholders and primary producers, licensed security guards, etc.

But that's it apart from a small subset of the population subscribing to being criminals who want usually illegal but sometimes legal guns. The general population doesn't for the most part need, or want, guns here.

I know that's completely different to the USA, or many other parts of the world where gun culture is bizarrely linked to the concepts of freedom and safety with a belief that you can't be free or safe unless you have a gun.

Guns are meant for one purpose - killing.

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calicuz · 56-60, M

What you say is true, but here in the US, the "right to bear arms" is first and foremost to defend ourselves from our government. While many judgments have been handed down to extend that "right" beyond that scope, the philosophy behind that right is what is most important. We could legislate that the firearms cannot leave the home and our rights wouldn't be violated.
I agree that there is no longer a need for possessing firearms, but I would never agree to disarm civilians but allow "the state," and "the state" being local law enforcement and the military, to keep their arms. It would be a foolish idea to disarm the military, but the current administration in the White House is proving why we would need to defend ourselves from our government.
The other side of this coin in the US, is there are over 380 thousand jobs directly linked to the firearms industry, so neither side of the political isle wants to eliminate 380 thousand jobs, nor do I, but we need a real solution to our school shootings problem.