Lots of good points by everyone! I pretty much agree with everything you've all said. I guess the perspective / attitude I have is, not that there is nothing that can be done to change things for the way I want them so why try, but rather that I do what I think is most effective to try to make the world I live in better in my eyes, but at the same time enjoying what there is to enjoy and believing that maybe those in charge aren't actually dedicated everything they do to keeping whoever they can down, but that they are actually trying to improve human existence.
This next bit is not to incite anger or resentment, etc, I think the main point of it is that this is a different place than the USA. What works there, might not be suitable here, and vice-verse. Also it shows that what has happened in other countries has less bearing on how / if / when / why the same thing could or would happen in your own.
As for not being able to get them for self-defense, my whole life I've only come across a handful of people here who are upset by not being able have a gun for protection. Those people, though, are ones that clearly want it so they can be a big man with a gun, disguising it as wanting it for a more noble cause. It just seems a long way down the list of necessities here. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe people here are really, genuinely outraged by it, but if so, they're going about being outraged in a confusing manner, and well, they deserve what they get by not fighting for it.
Maybe I've just been lucky, or my perception is bent and the world (well this country anyway) is actually a lot scarier than it looks to me, or I just think I'm superman or something. I ride a motorcycle though, and I know there's a heck of a lot more chance of me dying on that than because I didn't have a gun to stop myself from getting attacked, and there is a really simple thing I can do to reduce the likelihood of getting killed on my bike - stop riding it, but I'm not concerned enough with that, so I'm sure not concerned about anything less likely.
Honestly, too many people still smoke, even though it so effectively kills life (outright or lessens life expectancy). If they truly believe a gun will provide a benefit to their life expectancy, they either live somewhere pretty darned hostile or they have their priorities messed up. Two things I can honestly say I am glad I don't have to deal with. I have no objections to those with the right to, who choose to (or not) carry for self-defense, more power to you, and if I had the right or even ability, I probably would too. However, I think I'd stop carrying it after a year or so, as the inconvenience of putting on one more item would outweigh the benefit. I know, I know, you don't need it until you need it, and then it's too late, but if I did need it, and didn't have it - a) it would really surprise me that it actually happened, b) I would admit and accept I was wrong and c) I would deal with the situation in the best way I could.