The ownership of any handgun with any intent other that "target shooting and collecting purposes" is illegal. This is the point - your courts have already outlawed handguns for self-defense purposes.
Give your wife a .38 to carry on her trip through the dark ally to her car after work and she is a criminal, guilty of multiple offenses punishable by jail if caught.
Is that really the answer? If it is then why do you have one of the highest violent crime rates in the world? A firearm is only effective when in the hands of a well trained individual, not a trailer dwelling scholar with a 47 IQ that believes he has the god given right to pack heat. If you believe he/she deserves to pack heat then you open yourself to all sorts of subjectivety. I still remember seing a few years ago in an urban project,"He dissed me by stepping on my shoe so I wasted him". Is that what you want by freedom to carry. If it is then I'm glad we have some restrictions, atleast if you really want one then resourcefulness will weed out the 48 IQ trailer trash cop show stars. Again, let me say I like guns but to just be able to carry around a high powered handgun is just waiting for trouble.
A dumbass being a badass=a bad situation. You have a right to carry but so does the other ticked off dumb fuck.
the very freedom to protect myself and my loved ones from murder, rape, and plunder, for simple governmental whimsy is all right? BULLSHIT
And that right does not exist anywhere else?? Good god why is the murder rate so high, I guess because all the draft dodgers went to Canada. God given right, what a joke. I guess we could strap our gun to our leg and go for a midnight ride on our horse across Dodge.