For all that 9.3, I would have loved to carry a pistol around the farm as a kid, just to have a go at foxes and rabbits that sometimes popped up near the tractor. For years we could own cap-and-ball revolvers without a licence (before the pollies realised the pistols were mainly new ones, not just rusted antiques) but I had a young family and couldn't justify the marginal utility of one. My father would have taken a dim view, too. The only pistol remembered in our family was one my grandfather had in WWI. He lent it to someone going out on night patrol who didn't make it back in the morning. Dad said it had been a .32, so had evidently been Pappy's private possession.

You weren't supposed to fire those cap-and-ball pistols but people did, of course. Others got Colt AR7 survival rifles and 'lost' the barrel over the side of their boat, causing them to need a new one ...

- Paul