Few Fixers use guns for self-defense. Bullets cost an arm and a leg, and foes who are relatively powerful tend to dodge shots like it’s nothing, and I can barely graze ‘em… There’s not a lot of ways to react to enemies closing in, either. You’d have to be quick on the draw and shoot them in the weak spots; if you aren’t, the other options are running away or grabbing some prop to guard yourself… Like hell that’ll save you. It takes several augmentation procedures to be able to carry something as heavy as a firearm and run fast enough. If you’re a sniper, you’ll be busy packing up your weapon mount n’ everything; have to make unnecessarily big movements. And what if the precious gun gets damaged if you try blocking your foe’s attack with it? Oh, I was talking about the kinds of guns me and Tamaki use, not firearms in general. You see what Liwei’s carrying? I heard there are lighter rifles, and some that come with bayonets for close-quarters combat… But mind you, those guns have their fair share of downsides, so don’t be too quick to buy them. You might as well save the money and get a quality workshop weapon or an augmentation surgery instead. Hell, you could probably buy a fine weapon with the money it takes to buy bullets for target practice. You weren’t planning on using guns in actual fights without even practicing, were you? I mean, go ahead, if you really want dislocated shoulders and severed fingers.
Despite all this, there still are workshops that manufacture guns and people like us who use them. Guns are just that comfortable to use. Those heavy taxes won’t be a problem as long as use your gun for its intended purpose. How many defenseless thugs standing in the middle of the street can notice a bullet flying toward them? Of course, it’d be even better to get specially made workshop devices that use a special technology to muffle the sound of gunfire, but… Don’t expect too much. There’s currently no technology in our world that can completely cancel out noise, and it won’t exist in the foreseeable future. You don’t need that to make guns work, though. All it takes is an advantageous situation.
