I personally know absolutely no one who owns a handgun.
Though: one of my uncles is an old hunter and has a rifle. The boyfriend of my sister is a hunter too and has several rifles.
If you are not a hunter, it's pretty hard here in Austria to get a handgun: You need to pass a psycho test at a medical psychiatrist and pay some 400$ for that test. Then you need a handgun owner permit, which is also about 100$. A carrying permit is virtually unattainable for regular citizens these days, unless you are a jeweler, taxi driver etc. or other worker who's in danger of getting robbed. Then you need to buy that gun (which is 1000$ or more) and take a firearms safety class (which also costs a lot). Altogether, costs of up to 2000$ ... which is not worth it for most Austrians (although handgun requests are up in the last year because of the refugee invasion). Plus, police will check your household every year if your handgun is properly stored.
On the other hand, if you are a potential hunter then rifles are easy to get due to the strong Austrian hunting lobby. And there are many illegal firearms and handguns around from the 1990s, when many Austrians drove to Eastern Europe to buy cheap ones or from the Balkans.
The Austrian handgun laws were drastically tightened in 1997/98, after the Mauterndorf rampage here in Salzburg. Since then, the homicide (and also the suicide) rate dropped a lot to a new record low in 2014. In the 1980s and early 1990s, 50% of homicides were committed with a gun/rifle - which has now dropped to just 10%. Compare that with around 70% in the US ...
Can you get a rifle if you're not a hunter? How would they check?
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