Non-Ranged Combat, Does it really suck so much? Options

[deek]

I've searched the forums and can't find any discussions on this topic. The situation we came up against in our game yesterday was a player to player in-game fight, where one was using Unarmed combat and the other, with no type of melee skills, was shooting at close range.

What we found was that the melee combatant had to deal with a Reaction + melee skill, opposed roll with the defender, but on the flip side, the shooter was simply able to move out of melee and fire with no real penalty, and dropped the other player down to defending with just reaction.

After the session, we discussed this and it just didn't seem right that melee combat was so weak. If a shooter can always just step out of close range and fire without penalty, why would anyone NOT use a gun? Seeing that melee is also a complex action, how is this every going to come out with a martial artist build on top?

I'm not saying it should, granted, but it seems that it should be a little more fair. I mean, if I had a gun (which I can shoot SA twice per phase), and and Bruce Lee was attacking me, I don't think my gun would be of too much use in the fight...

So what am I missing here and what have others experienced?