I know that Quigley's talking points were probably kept to a minimum for the interview (and may not have been clearly reported either).
I understand your point. You know and I know that gun bans keep firearms out-of-reach only from law-abiding citizens.
However, the gun banners believe that a ban on guns will eventually disarm everyone and a gun-free world would be safer. Antigunners like to harp on guns-against-guns and the idea that if bad guys did not have guns, good guys would not need guns. I see that meme or talking point repeated. Guns are not always used to defend against guns, but against threats of death or greivous bodily harm from brute force, knife, club, gangs, and removing guns from everyone would not change for the better.
Frank Zimring likes to harp on the meme that the presence of a gun makes a violent situation more dangerous. A relative of mine was returning home from work when she was accosted on her own lawn by two men. She pulled a gun from her purse. The presence of the gun made the situation more dangerous for the two men: she was able to hold them off and get to a vehicle to flee.
I see a gun-free world as one where the strong, the brutal, and the gangs are free to prey on the weak, the peaceful and the out-numbered. That is the point I feel is being missed.
(And yeah I started as a "sporting purposes only" Fuddite in the 1960s and 1970s, and had to be convinced that guns for self defense were a good idea.)
I also have no faith in gun bans. I grew up in a county that was "dry" til 1968 and I know prohibition does not work. From knowing both cops and crooks as friends, relatives, neighbors, schoolmates, I had practical experience that criminals in the 1960s were getting their guns from other-than-legal sources.
James D. Wright and Peter Rossi, "Armed and Considered Dangerous", (Aldine 1986, 2nd ed 2008, ISBN-13: 978-0202362427), US NIJ Felon Survey of 1,874 convicts in 18 prisons in 10 different states. Felons "obtain guns in hard-to-regulate ways from hard-to-regulate sources". a link to the author's summation:
http://www.rkba.org/research/wright/armed-criminal.summary.html
Handgun-using felons expected to be able to get handguns from "unregulated channels" within a week of release from prison*: friends (mostly fellow criminals), from "the street" (used guns from strangers), from fences or the blackmarket or drug dealers (who often run guns along with drugs).
Of gun using felons, 50% expected to unlawfully purchase a gun through "unregulated channels"; 25% expected to be able to borrow a gun from a fellow criminal, and about 12% expected to steal a gun. 7% cited licensed gun dealers and 6% cited pawnshops (usually through a surrogate buyer, family member or lover).
40% of the felons surveyed reported stealing firearms. Sources stolen from included: 37% from stores, 15% from police, 16% from truck shipments, 8% from manufacturers, 21% from individuals.
A few years back, two officers interviewed in Knoxville about a proposed gun law told the newspaper that one in five of criminals they encountered owned a gun, and of the criminals who owned guns 80% got them from illegal sources, so I suspect things have not changed much since the 1980s of the Wright&Rossi study or my experience in the 1960s.
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*Surprise, surprise, surpise. A UK study after the infamous 1997 handgun ban revealed that UK gun using felons interviewed in prison expected to be able to get guns within a week or two of release if they wanted one. Gun sources: from smugglers, drug dealers, underground "armourers" who specialized in fencing guns stolen, converted blank guns, military surplus smuggled in, and the drug-smuggler/gun-runner overlap was also mentioned as a UK source of guns. Licensed gun dealers and pawnshops were not mentioned.
Home Office Research Study 298,
Gun crime: the market in and use of illegal firearms, December 2006, details the "emerging criminal gun culture" in Great Britain.