Guns in the hands of citizens sometimes work to their advantage and sometimes they just provide an excuse for the police to shoot them dead (they had a gun!).
If you really want to "defend yourself" you need one of these!
On July 24, the Ukrainian news source UAWire reported that three members of the Border Guard Service suffered retinal burns while carrying out surveillance. The cause? Laser weapons. UAWire suggests this was a deliberate attack by pro-Russian separatists using "prohibited special-purpose laser weapons."
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a22254/russia-illegal-laser-weapons/
Guns are just a tool in the Independence and resistance toolkit. I don't mean to imply they're the be-all and end-all, but neither should they be disregarded, and gun prohibition for the subjects is always a definite signal the State sees itself as supreme ruler.