query: Should more gun control laws be enacted?

positive: Recent and past shootings are not a gun control problem but a problem of society and the individuals Even before starting my attack with opponent’s case, I would like to explain that my opponent already missed out on the fundamental essence of the debate. In this debate, “Recent and past shootings are not a gun control problem but a problem of society and the individuals”, Pro had to show that reason why these random shootings occur is due to social and individual problems, less of gun control. As I have correctly explained, problems with individual is common everywhere. The problem with individual is not something special only in the US; hence my opponent already failed his part. Of course gun control itself cannot make people to commit crime. That is not even what we are debating about. We are discussing the bigger contributing factor to frequent random shootings. 15 out of 25 worst shooting incidents occurred in US that have loose gun control. I asked opponent to address what makes US people a bigger problem than their gun control due to the fact that all countries have the same people problem but only US has such a dramatic gun control problem. In this round, I would like to offer some further attack to defense that my opponent gave in the previous round. The numberings will stay identical. Attack 1: Trauma My opponent kept on explaining that students in US receive so much traumatic experience and that causes them to pick up guns and randomly shoot at people. He gave medical explanation on what kind of things cause people to commit suicide or violent crimes and that US has highest inmate numbers. However, those claims do not tie back to the debate by two reasons. Firstly, I already have shown through statistics that it is not only US where students experience violence and bullying but in fact, the problem also exist in Korea and yet there has been no shooting incident with live ammunition in civilian area in South Korea. Secondly, the implied premise that United States citizen are more prone to crime than any other country is wrong. To support this, my opponent gave statistics that United States has the highest inmate number. Nevertheless, “violent crimes” that my opponent clearly specified that is a result of traumatic experience is at highest rate in the UK where only 18 people are murdered with guns. It is also noteworthy how he concluded saying “crime rate is high and it is due to problems in the society and environment not due to access to guns.” We can already notice that my opponent is far off the topic. We are discussing the bigger contributing factor to random shooting incidents, not crimes in general. Of course crime happens because of the people. As my opponent correctly said, they will commit crime anyways. But what enables them to aim at 28 innocent lives is loose gun control that gives them access to guns. Attack 2/4: 0.012% or 0.0117% My opponent kept focusing overly on percentage that includes illegal guns. However, he is still missing out two things. Firstly, it does not matter if it is 0.012% or 0.0117% or even lower. What we know is that there are about 10,000 gun homicides each year and that gun is used in 2/3 of murder in the US. Such percentage under decimal might seem very minute. However, as my opponent said, there are 80 million owners. “We shouldn’t change things drastically on those small numbers.”? Every single passenger in airplane has to have their baggage and body checked in security because of terrorists. I want everyone reading this debate to remember that 10,000 dead bodies each year in US have bullet holes in them out of 15,000 total deaths. Secondly, the fact that so much illegal gun exists is what we really need to get. There is noticeable black market of guns, big enough to even affect the percentage that “favors” my opponent. I do not see the necessity to discuss this further. Attack 3: Ability to defend their own lives and property In this part, my opponent is being very inconsistent with his own argument. He previously claimed that having stricter control on guns will open a possibility for everything to be restricted like ropes and access to high places. He now changed his argument and I claiming that it impedes people’s freedom to defend them. Let me deal with this brand new argument first and also explain an interesting concession my opponent made. We live in modern world. We do not need to defend ourselves but there are law enforcers that does. We do not live in the time of Wild West where it was necessary to defend ourselves with our own ways. Now laws are there and that is in fact that spirit of the modern world. Instead of guns, there are also other tools that can be used to defend ourselves. Even so speaking under assumption that we are in desperate need to protect ourselves, there are sprays, bats or even fists that can serve better for the purpose of self-defense. We are not banning the learning of boxing or karate but a powerful tool that facilitates crime so much. If my opponent’s case is true, then all countries that do not guarantee right to possess gun should have people fearing about their safety. Ironically, US have the highest inmate numbers. Now, let me mention the concession my opponent made. I claimed that primary purpose of gun is destruct. In destruction, it includes notion of hunting, targeting and self-defense since a bullet is traveling at speed of sound and penetrating through an object. Regardless of its purpose, guns shoot bullet that is made to destroy and for that it is fundamentally dangerous. That is why controlling strict on guns is not impeding anyone’s freedom. The UK example is does not work because it was specifically on hand guns. Now in UK, where automatic, semiautomatic assault rifles and hand guns are prohibited, there are about 18 total gun homicides (2009). Attack 5: Rates I am very confused by my opponent who gave overall homicide rate in debate about gun control and is now blaming me for giving a correct and appropriate statistics. Guns themselves of course cannot commit crimes. It is always the humans that cause crimes. But in this debate, I have proved that guns give means to those who are going to commit crime to shoot at 28 innocent lives. I do not understand how this debate required overall homicide rate. To prove that there are other factors to crimes than guns? That is a truism that I cannot rebut which is also considered as logical fallacy in a debate. It is very clear that my opponent is misled in the debate. He gave some truisms that there are other contributing factors in crime overall and later on explained why guns should not be strictly controlled. He explained that only 0.012% causes crime which is irrelevant. I do not disagree that problems with people are a cause of mass shooting incidents to a certain extent. But gun control is the main cause because it gives them means to shoot at 28 innocent children. With stricter gun control like South Korea, China and Australia, these troubled individuals that exist everywhere will have less chance to pick up a rifle and fire randomly in the first place. My opponent in the end admitted that if criminals can get their hands on a weapon, they will use it. By that, he essentially lost the debate. Guns are the weapons of choice and because of that fact, mass shootings occur. If guns are controlled, people will commit crimes but they would not be able to shoot at random citizen, causing tens of death.1. Violent crimes and homicides happen regardless of legal access to guns but that is not the essence of this debate. We are discussing mass shootings. 2. Out of about 60 mass shootings that occurred for past two decades, 10 were done with illegal weapons.3. UK only has about 18 gun homicides each year and I never argued illegal weapons will never be obtained.4. Of course there is a cause of violence and that is why crimes happen all the time. But what causes mass shooting primarily is high access to guns for they make them so easy to commit. Please come up with points and attacks regarding this specific motion.

positive: "Assault Rifles" (AR-15's Legality) - So I win this point. This was originally a rebuttal to my point about gun laws and how they reduce crime. I read through your source, and it says guns are bought where gun control is lesser. In other words, if the whole nation had strict gun laws, this trade would stop and it would be harder to get a gun in Chicago. And this really isn't a rebuttal. No matter how strict gun laws are, it will be near impossible to stop illegal guns from coming in. But, most illegal guns come from states with weak gun laws, like Indiana. Your own source says this. Obviously, if Indiana passed stronger gun laws, then this trade would go down, and Chicago would have less gun crime. That isn't how this works. If you put up gun control in Indiana people are going to smuggle guns in from other states, if the whole nation gets gun control smugglers will get them in from out of the country. It's the same with drugs, they are illegal in all states, so smugglers smuggle them in from out of the country. (and just a tip, don't say you won a point. That's not for you to decide.) - I saw no sources to back up anything. I definitely looked at your sources. You notice that in my rebuttal, where I specially mention I read your sources. Maybe you didn't read my argument. Also, you are supposed to make the argument. Your source shows where you get the data, or where you get the argument, from. You can't just say, "This is my argument -link to another video by someone else." So as far as I'm concerned, I win this point too, as you are unable to prove how this comma proves anything. And, you didn't respond to my question. What is the point of the, "Well regulated militia" part then? A.) the constitution is my source, the very first words were "we the people" not "we the states" or "we the militia" or "we the government" B.)like I said in the comments, there are too many sources to link them, so I post the video because it contains all of the links. C.)you didn't disprove my statement about the comma. D.)the point of the well-regulated militia part is to establish that arms are to be used in a well-regulated militia, but the comma is there to separate that from "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." what other reason is there for the comma? I could send you a source telling you the meaning of a comma, but you should already know a comma is to separate two parts of a sentence. Please listen to this point. Passing more gun laws won't violate any interpretation of the second amendment. You can still buy guns. Only bad people can't buy guns. Law abiding citizens can still bear arms. My proof of this is the States. States with more gun control have fewer murders. The link is in earlier argument. gun laws do affect law abiding citizens when you say what guns they can and cannot own, just because that's the gun a criminal owned. Non-restrictive gun laws aren't the issue, it's banning certain guns. I'd agree that fully-automatic weapons should not be in civilians hands, but a semi-automatic self-defense, hunting, and sporting gun should not be illegal.(the AR-15) "As I said earlier, just because M.r Crowder is biased doesn't mean the facts he provides are false." - No, I'm saying this because, in his article, he has no sources. So why should I believe what he says? If you had the capacity to look on the page a little, you would have found the sources. - The only gun you actually showed was the Girandoni Air Rifle, in service in Europe. How do you know the founding fathers knew about it? The constitution was written in 1787. How do you know that at that time, the founding fathers knew about that technology? Even if they did, take into account its' effectiveness and the time the second amendment was written. First, the time. This was at a time when there were not gangs and tons of gun crime. This was when there was no strong US army, and the founding fathers knew that the people would need to be armed to protect the nation. Plus, this gun can't of been in many hands, so the fathers probably didn't care about it. And again, this gun was horribly ineffective, as your own source points out. Like it needs 1500 pumps just to shoot a few rounds at a very low velocity. This is the kind of repeating gun that existed. Not the modern rifles we have today. So my point still stands. As technology improves, laws need to catch up. This is why I provided the example of drones to back up my claim. A.) I showed at least 3 more weapons that were high-capacity firearms. B.)http://www.redstate.com... They knew very well that the Giradoni rifle existed, and if I remember correctly, George Washinton tried to order multi-shot rifles, but they were too expensive. I have no source to back up this claim presently, so feel free to ignore that part. C.)you provided the example that drones with weaponry would require renewing of laws, and I agree, but drones with weaponry are military only already, meanwhile these firearms are perfectly safe for civilian use. They even fire the same ammunition as most hunting rifles and are commonly used for hunting. D.) you declared you won a point again. that's not your decision. Hell, president Madison protected a citizen ship's right to have cannons on it, in a time when cannons served purely a military purpose." - Yes, I checked your source, and it said Madison allowed the ship to have cannons FOR a military purpose: attacking enemy shipping. We are not in a war. We don't need private ships with missles, we have a navy for that. This is a reoccurring theme for this debate. We don't need private citizens to be armed. We have others to protect them. We have the strongest military in the world, so the people don't need to be armed in the way the founding fathers intended. the point of that clearly flew right over your head. Madison let a civilian ship bear almost exclusively military arms was the point. No, I don't think civilians need military-grade firearms, but an AR-15 is a civilian grade weapon. http://www.ar15goa.com... "AR-15-style rifles look like military rifles, such as the M-16, but function like other semi-automatic civilian sporting firearms, firing only one round with each pull of the trigger." - My point is that you can still bear arms, regardless of whether guns are banned. The second amendment mentions "Arms". Not firearms, but arms. If you want to play semantics, I can too. Even with your interpretation, it only gives the right to bear arms. So if you restrict guns, which doesn't even violate the second amendment, people can still bear arms. Just not firearms. "the peoples right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" I don't understand how you can make that statement when the second amendment clearly disagrees. Banning guns would be a move made in SEVERE disregard of the second amendment. http://www.annenbergclassroom.org... "We hold that the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense." The court said that banning the possession of handguns is an infringement of the Second Amendment. The functionality of a handgun and an AR-15 Is essentially identical. AR-15s just "look scary" I'm getting low on characters how about Venezuela? They banned most firearms and have a much higher gun murder rate than the U.S. Or Honduras, which has stricter gun regulations and one of the highest gun murder rates in the world? Or Brazil? Or Swaziland? Or Guatemala, Jamaica, El Salvador, or Colombia? Because those countries follow strict gun laws, and have higher murder rates than the U.S. Our murder rate is much lower than theirs actually, it's our suicide rate that makes our gun death rate as high as it is. If we were basing it off of just gun murder, America would be far lower on this list. We don't need gun control, we need therapy, apparently. https://en.wikipedia.org... I cannot express how irritating it is that you keep claiming you've won points. surprise, surprise, states with more knives have more knife related deaths, places with more cars tend to have more pollution, places with more criminals tend to have more crime. How about having people defend themselves from the crime that happens? You can require safety measures, but you can't stop an idiot from being an idiot with them. how about more gun safety classes? That seems like a less expensive and more effective thing, to teach idiots what to do and what not to do with firearms, and not blame the gun if the idiot does something stupid with their firearm, instead of punishing law abiding citizens for it. "While you are more likely to be shot in the occurrence of a shooting,you are also far less likely to be involved in a shooting or violent crime if you carry. A study found that you are far likely to be engaged by someone with criminal intent if you have a firearm on you." - This is actually a bad thing. More criminals carry guns because more people carry guns. So stop concealed carry. so you're saying it's a bad thing that people who carry firearms are much less likely to be involved in crime? I don't see your point. You're saying we need to stop concealed carry because it stops crime. As I said, a study showed that even an armed criminal is much less likely to engage with someone who they believe has a weapon on them. If more people carry, criminals will fear them more. https://www.gunowners.org... In conclusion, my rights then are no different than my rights now, no matter the tech. My Right to own firearms, especially civilian grade firearms, is not to be infringed, and the constitution defends that right. I have another point I'll put in the comme

positive: "Assault Rifles" (AR-15's Legality) "That isn't how this works. If you put up gun control in Indiana people are going to smuggle guns in from other states, if the whole nation gets gun control smugglers will get them in from out of the country. It's the same with drugs, they are illegal in all states, so smugglers smuggle them in from out of the country." - Fair enough. But there are 2 problems with this. First, if the guns are coming from out of the country, our gun laws don't apply, so the hypothetical problem would be with our border control, not our gun laws. Secondly, while yes, illegal guns will be smuggled in, the amount of illegal guns in the country will go down. Why? Well, look at your source. They say that most of the illegal guns used in Chicago come from other states, where they are legally bought. So it is easy for guns to be taken to Chicago. However, to get guns from out of the country would be much harder. You need to bring it from Mexico, passed the border, and then travel 1000 miles North to get the guns to Chicago. This would bottleneck the amount of guns getting to Chicago, as it would be way harder then driving a few minutes to Indiana, and buying a gun easily, and driving back. "the constitution is my source, the very first words were "we the people" not "we the states" or "we the militia" or "we the government" - Yeah, in the Preamble, not the second amendment. "like I said in the comments, there are too many sources to link them, so I post the video because it contains all of the links." - Yes, the comments exist. Post sources there. "you didn't disprove my statement about the comma." - This is because it was sourceless. "the point of the well-regulated militia part is to establish that arms are to be used in a well-regulated militia, but the comma is there to separate that from "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." what other reason is there for the comma? I could send you a source telling you the meaning of a comma, but you should already know a comma is to separate two parts of a sentence." - This is called a strawman argument. I never said, "What's the point of the comma?" I said, "What's the point of the first clause then?" If we interpret it your way, it doesn't make sense, as the first established nothing and there would be no reason for it. If you interpret it my way, it makes more sense. It establishes the right for militias to exist. This is because, as I've stated before, the U.S. army was almost nonexistent then, so the founding fathers decided to use the people to defend our country as well. Also, people used commas much more often back then then they did now. This is obviously if you look at pieces of writing from then. So it is more likely that the comma is there because the fathers thought it would sound better. "gun laws do affect law abiding citizens when you say what guns they can and cannot own, just because that's the gun a criminal owned. Non-restrictive gun laws aren't the issue, it's banning certain guns. I'd agree that fully-automatic weapons should not be in civilians hands, but a semi-automatic self-defense, hunting, and sporting gun should not be illegal.(the AR-15)" - I disagree. The AR-15 is not good for hunting or self defense. Hunting takes patience. You wait for hours, then when you see an animal, you slowly aim, then fire your shot. If you miss your first round, the animal will obviously hear you and run away. If you had a semiauto, maybe you could get another shot, but is that really the point of hunting? Your aren't supposed to fire tons of rounds at an animal, you only should need one, or more, if you track it. Yes, you can use it, but it is not meant for it. You could use pretty much any gun for hunting, at with varying effects. This doesn't mean Nerf guns or .50 cals are meant for it, or best for it. As for home defense, the best gun would be a shotgun, or a pistol. A semi auto gun is a medium range gun, poorly suited for an intruder 5 feet away from you. [A] With no valid source. [B] Once again, I can throw out this source. It has no evidence, other then the authors say so. The source says the fathers knew about the Air Rifle, but once again, it links to no historical documents or anything of that sort. [C] This is incorrect [1]. This is a link to a video with a gun that can be fired while attached to a drone. So this is legal for civilians. My point is again, as tech improves, laws need to as well. Yes, the Giradoni Air Rifle existed, but it is nothing compared to the guns we have today. "the point of that clearly flew right over your head. Madison let a civilian ship bear almost exclusively military arms was the point. No, I don't think civilians need military-grade firearms, but an AR-15 is a civilian grade weapon." - I don't get what you are trying to say here. "the peoples right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" I don't understand how you can make that statement when the second amendment clearly disagrees. Banning guns would be a move made in SEVERE disregard of the second amendment. http://www.annenbergclassroom.org...... "We hold that the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense." The court said that banning the possession of handguns is an infringement of the Second Amendment. The functionality of a handgun and an AR-15 Is essentially identical. AR-15s just "look scary" - This doesn't rebut my statement. The Supreme Court ruling doesn't address my point. "how about Venezuela? They banned most firearms and have a much higher gun murder rate than the U.S. Or Honduras, which has stricter gun regulations and one of the highest gun murder rates in the world? Or Brazil? Or Swaziland? Or Guatemala, Jamaica, El Salvador, or Colombia? Because those countries follow strict gun laws, and have higher murder rates than the us." - Oh come on. You don't expect people to buy this, right? These are all 3rd world countries, some of which have drug cartels. These are not fair comparisons. My opponent has dropped my main argument: reduction of crime. I provided 3 examples to prove this. Japan, Canada, and the individual states. Canada and Japan have a significantly lower crime rate then the HS, and they have much stricter gun laws. I then provided and example of the states. I provided a chart which showed that states with more gun laws had a lower gun homicide rate. My opponent drops this completely. So he agrees; gun control reduces crime. "Our murder rate is much lower than theirs actually, it's our suicide rate that makes our gun death rate as high as it is. If we were basing it off of just gun murder, America would be far lower on this list. We don't need gun control, we need therapy, apparently." - Lower then whos'. And I was only basing this off gun homicides. "surprise, surprise, states with more knives have more knife related deaths, places with more cars tend to have more pollution, places with more criminals tend to have more crime. How about having people defend themselves from the crime that happens?" - What is this rebutting? "You can require safety measures, but you can't stop an idiot from being an idiot with them. how about more gun safety classes? That seems like a less expensive and more effective thing, to teach idiots what to do and what not to do with firearms, and not blame the gun if the idiot does something stupid with their firearm, instead of punishing law abiding citizens for it." - Exactly. I said we should require safety courses and safety measures in order to buy and keep guns. This would educate the idiots and would hopefully stop them from buying guns. For your second point, I wouldn't have a problem with guns. it is just that weak gun laws and more guns equals more death. I think guns are cool, but I believe people's lives far outweigh hobbies. "so you're saying it's a bad thing that people who carry firearms are much less likely to be involved in crime? I don't see your point. You're saying we need to stop concealed carry because it stops crime. As I said, a study showed that even an armed criminal is much less likely to engage with someone who they believe has a weapon on them. If more people carry, criminals will fear them more." - Sorry, I didn't make my point clear. The study I linked too showed that 75% of convicted felons said they carried guns because their victims might be armed as well. So the more people get armed, the more criminals arm themselves. This means innocent people could get shot by criminals, just because of the chance they were carrying guns. To conclude, I believe that passing more gun laws is a good thing. It will reduce crime, as showed in the real world. It also can reduce accidental deaths, and suicides. It also is constitutional, and, if it wasn't, laws need updating as tech advances. Thanks for the debate! Source: https://m.youtube.com...

positive: The US should adopt stricter gun control laws I would firstly like to state my framework for this debate, and then move on to state my contentions for this debate. Framework: The affirmation states "Adopt stricter gun control laws. " This means that the proposition only needs to prove one gun law that should be stricter in order to win this debate. C1: Solves The Root Of The Problem One of the roots of the problem for gun violence are background checks. The current laws for background checks are ineffective, allowing criminals to get there hands on weapons. According to Everytown, Federal law only requires licensed gun dealers to conduct background checks. That means that millions of guns are exchanged each year without a check"most often online or at gun shows through unlicensed "private sellers. " Felons, domestic abusers, seriously mentally ill, and other dangerous people know about this loophole, and they exploit it every day. It"s like having two lines at the airport"one with security, and one without. And criminals get to choose. We also need to make sure the background check database is complete. States and federal agencies have failed to send hundreds of thousands of records to the national background check databases. Every missing record is another tragedy waiting to happen. The Virginia Tech shooter, who killed 32 people, was banned from buying guns. But he passed a background check because his records never made it into the system. As you can see, by closing simple loopholes in the law, like making private sellers also have to give background checks and entering information in databases faster, criminals and the mentally ill cannot get access to guns, making tragedies over before they even happen. C2: Reduces Homicides And Suicides My opponent and I both know that there are intentional killings with guns. However, what many people do not know is that there are unintentional killings as well. According to The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 50% of unintentional fatal shootings were self-inflicted. 89% of unintentional shooting deaths of children occur in the home and most of these deaths occur when children are playing with a loaded gun in their parents" absence. 31% of total accidental shooting deaths could have been prevented by installing safety devices on guns: 100% of deaths per year in which a child under 6 years old shoots and kills themselves could be prevented by automatic child proof safety locks; and 23% of accidental shooting deaths by adolescents and adults could be prevented by loading indicators showing when a bullet was in the chamber ready to be fired. Simple solutions like these could have prevented over 270,237 lives in the last decade. This means that we should adopt these simple laws to save lots of lives in the future. C3: Reduces Societal Costs The effects of gun violence not only cause a loss of lives, but also cost a lot of money to families and the federal government. Causing restrictions, would make spending money at a minimum. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2015, gun violence cost each person in the United States roughly $564 and the US government $5.5 billion in lost tax revenue; $4.7 billion in court costs; $1.4 billion in Medicare and Medicaid costs; $180 million in mental health care for victims; $224 million in insurance claims processing; and $133 million for law enforcement and medic response to shooting injuries. There were also 36,341 emergency room visits and 25,024 hospitalizations for gun injuries, costing an estimated $6.3 million. 84% of those injured by firearms are uninsured, leaving taxpayers responsible for most of those bills through programs like Medicaid. As you can see, there are so many effects of gun violence that can cost money. If we take simple precautions like closing loopholes and making sure guns are locked up at all times, then there would be no money spent on this, leaving more money to spend on other things.

positive: July Tournament C1) SuicidesA) Gun StorageHarvard Injury Control Research Center analyzed a number of national random-digit dial telephone surveys and found that, “Many gun owners report storing their guns loaded and unlocked. Gun training is often associated with an increased likelihood of storing firearms in this manner.” And that, “Some 400 parents with firearms in the home responded to questions about firearms storage. Over 20% of parents had a loaded firearm and 8% stored at least one firearm loaded and unlocked. Households with teenagers were somewhat more likely to store firearms unsafely.”(http://www.hsph.harvard.edu...)In, “a national random telephone survey of 2,770 adults… of the 392 respondents who had at least one child and one firearm in the home, 22 percent had a loaded gun, 32 percent had an unlocked gun and 8 percent had a gun stored loaded and unlocked.”http://archive.sph.harvard.edu...“More than 1.6 million U.S. children live in homes with firearms that are stored loaded and unlocked. Because the guns used in youth suicides and unintentional injuries primarily come from victims’ homes, storage practices that allow for easy access to a firearm pose a threat to the safety of young people.”(http://archive.sph.harvard.edu...)Via the inability to store firearms properly; a teenager going through the extremely difficult time of adolescence has easy access to a weapon that they should not have. Whether that means that they bring it to school to show off to friends, to kill numerous classmates, or to kill themselves. Now while a substantial amount of teenagers wouldn’t take advantage of this easy access for harmful uses, the fact that any amount could is too many.This easy access to firearms poses many other problems as well. Anyone with a mental disability, or falsely identifying a friend/family as an intruder, or someone who is drunk, someone who is on drugs (not in their right mind), a marital fight, a toddler or young child mistaking it for a toy, etc. could all end in an unwanted death.This ease of access to firearms spawns more homicides, more suicides, more accidental shootings, and more deaths.B) Firearms & SuicideI.“Using survey data on rates of household gun ownership, we examined the association between gun availability and suicide across states, 1999-2001. States with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm suicide and overall suicide. This relationship held for both genders and all age groups. It remained true after accounting for poverty, urbanization and unemployment…states with more guns had higher rates of suicide.” (http://www.hsph.harvard.edu...) Owning a gun is a dangerous possession to have; you will actually be three times more likely to choose to commit suicide than someone who doesn’t own a gun. (http://www.thedailybeast.com...)II.“In 2010, 38,364 people killed themselves. In more than half of these cases, they used firearms. Indeed, more people in this country kill themselves with guns than with all other intentional means combined, including hanging, poisoning or overdose, jumping, or cutting. Though guns are not the most common method by which people attempt suicide, they are the most lethal. About 85 percent of suicide attempts with a firearm end in death.”(http://www.hsph.harvard.edu...)What we can draw from the evidence is two things:(1) Most suicides are done by firearms.(2) Suicide by firearm is the most lethal method as 85% end in death.Now while a ban on firearms will not decrease the amount of people that will commit suicide, it will save lives.Poison:For every successful suicide by poison, there are 42 attempted suicides by poison. That’s a 2.38% fatality rate.(http://lostallhope.com...)Cutting Wrists/Arms/Legs:A 6% fatality rate, for around every 17 attempts, only 1 succeeds.(http://lostallhope.com...)Overdose on Drugs:A 12.3% fatality rate, for every 8 attempts, only one succeeds.(http://lostallhope.com...)Hanging:75% fatality rate, for every 4 attempts, 3 succeed.(http://www.medscape.com...)If someone fails to commit suicide, they are rushed to a hospital where they are treated for their injuries. Then they are taken to get treatment to help their depression, this treatment works 80-90% of the time and the victim does not commit suicide again.(http://www.save.org...)“Most suicide attempts do not result in death. Many of these attempts are done in a way that makes rescue possible. These attempts are often a cry for help."(http://www.nlm.nih.gov...)Many people who commit suicide don’t actually want to die; they just want help with their problem. Having a suicide attempt less likely to be successful gives the victim the opportunity to seek help, fix their problem, and save their life. A ban on guns fixes this issue.C2) Firearm Accidents"In 2007, the United States suffered some 15,000-19,000 accidental shootings…American children under age 15 were nine times more likely to die of a gun accident than children in other advanced wealthy countries… About 200 Americans go to emergency rooms every day with gunshot wounds…”(http://www.thedailybeast.com...)Firearms are extremely deadly weapons; therefore extreme caution and responsibility are necessary when handling them. Despite the aggressive training required to get a license;“Take a 14-hour course (8 hours classroom, 6 hours range) in the carrying and use of firearms given by a Bureau- certified firearms training instructor at a Bureau certified training facility… Pass the written and range exams given at the end of the course”(http://www.bsis.ca.gov...)This goes to show that despite intensive training measures, gun accidents still occur.Firearm accidents are also much more likely to occur than other harmful accidents. For example, poison containers come with lids that are generally more difficult to remove and knives require very solid pressure in certain areas on the body to be fatal, all a gun requires is a pull of the trigger.Gun accidents are the worst kind of death; they are senseless, completely devoid of purpose. They leave the person who committed the act with a terrible sense of guilt that stays with them for the rest of their life.With gun accidents sending 200 people to the emergency room every day, and thousands of people with gunshot wounds every year, we have to realize that guns are not worth the risk.C3) HomicideA)“Handgun purchase was more common among persons dying from… or homicide (OR 2.4, 95% CI 1.6 to 3.7), and particularly among those dying from… or gun homicide (OR 3.3; 95% CI 2.1 to 5.3), than among controls. No such differences were seen for non-gun suicide or homicide… Handgun purchasers accounted for less than 1% of the study population but 2.4% of gun homicides, 14.2% of gun suicides, and 16.7% of unintentional gun deaths.”The study concluded that; “Among adults who died in California in 1998, those dying from violence were more likely than those dying from non-injury causes to have purchased a handgun…legal purchase of a handgun appears to be associated with a long-lasting increased risk of violent death”(http://injuryprevention.bmj.com...)Evidence shows that the act of purchasing a handgun significantly increases your chances of a violent death. These statistics match what you would expect from a society where guns are legal. If someone is wielding a gun against an attacker who just wants to steal some items from their home, they are placing both themselves and the attacker at greater risk of death in the process.B)“Every day in the U.S., an average of 289 people are shot. Eighty-six of them die: 30 are murdered, 53 kill themselves, two die accidentally, and one is shot in a police intervention.”(http://usnews.nbcnews.com...)Of the 12, 765 murders in 2012; 8,855 of them were performed with guns. That’s 69.4% of all murders performed with a firearm.(http://www.infoplease.com...)If guns are banned, a murderer will have to use some other type of weapon that is less effective than a gun would be. A ban on guns would lower the effectiveness of murders and save the lives of murder victims.Conclusion:The United States should enact a nation-wide ban on all firearms to; reduce suicide rates, reduce deaths from accidents, and reduce homicide rates.

positive: Gun Control Okay, so this was a mistake clicking on because I didn't read it all the way through. So this is not my personal opinion, but I don't want to leave you hanging so I'll argue the other side.Gun control doesn't deter crime, gun ownership does.A Nov. 26, 2013 study found that, between 1980 and 2009, "assault weapons bans did not significantly affect murder rates at the state level" and "states with restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons had higher gun-related murders." While gun ownership doubled in the twentieth century, the murder rate decreased. John R. Lott, Jr., PhD, author of More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws, stated, "States with the largest increases in gun ownership also have the largest drops in violent crimes... The effect on 'shall-issue' [concealed gun] laws on these crimes [where two or more people were killed] has been dramatic. When states passed these laws, the number of multiple-victim shootings declined by 84 percent. Deaths from these shootings plummeted on average by 90 percent and injuries by 82 percent." A Dec. 10, 2014 Pew survey found that 57% of people believe that owning a gun protects them from being victimized. Journalist John Stossel explained, "Criminals don't obey the law… Without the fear of retaliation from victims who might be packing heat, criminals in possession of these [illegal] weapons now have a much easier job... As the saying goes, 'If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.'" Gun control laws infringe upon the right to self defense and deny people a sense of safety. According to the National Rifle Association (NRA), guns are used for self-defense 2.5 million times a year. The police cannot protect everyone all of the time. 61% of men and 56% of women surveyed by Pew Research said that stricter gun laws would "make it more difficult for people to protect their homes and families." Nelson Lund, JD, PhD, Professor at George Mason University School of Law, stated, "The right to self-defense and to the means of defending oneself is a basic natural right that grows out of the right to life" and "many [gun control laws] interfere with the ability of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves against violent criminals." Constitutions in 37 US states protect the right to bear arms for self-defense, most with explicit language such as Alabama's: "every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state." Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the NRA, stated, "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." A May 9, 2013 48% of convicted felons surveyed admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed with a gun. Pew Foundation report found that 79% of male gun owners and 80% of female gun owners said owning a gun made them feel safer and 64% of people living in a home in which someone else owns a gun felt safer. Even Senator Dianne Feinstein, a gun control advocate, carried a concealed gun when her life was threatened and her home attacked by the New World Liberation Front in the 1970s. Gun control laws give too much power to the government and may result in government tyranny and the government taking away all guns from citizens. 57% of people surveyed by Pew Research in Feb. 2013 said that gun control laws would "give too much power to the government over the people." The NRA's Wayne LaPierre stated, "if you look at why our Founding Fathers put it [the Second Amendment] there, they had lived under the tyranny of King George and they wanted to make sure that these free people in this new country would never be subjugated again and have to live under tyranny." Alex Jones, radio host, in a Jan 7, 2013 interview with Piers Morgan, stated, "The Second Amendment isn't there for duck hunting, it's there to protect us from tyrannical government and street thugs… 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms!"More gun control is unnecessary because relatively few people are killed by guns.According to the CDC's "Leading Causes of Death Reports," between 1999 and 2013, Americans were 21.5 times more likely to die of heart disease (9,691,733 deaths); 18.7 times more likely to die of malignant tumors (8,458,868 deaths); and 2.4 times more likely to die of diabetes or 2.3 times more likely to die of Alzheimer's (1,080,298 and 1,053,207 respectively) than to die from a firearm (whether by accident, homicide, or suicide). The flu and related pneumonia (875,143 deaths); traffic accidents (594,280 deaths); and poisoning whether via accident, homicide, or suicide (475,907 deaths) all killed more people between 1999 and 2013 than firearms. Firearms were the 12th leading cause of deaths for all deaths between 1999 and 2013, responsible for 1.3% of deaths with 464,033 deaths. Internationally, the claim that the United States has a major problem with firearm homicide is exaggerated. The United States is ranked 28 in international homicide rates with 2.97 gun murders per 100,000 people in 2012.More gun control is not needed; education about guns and gun safety is needed to prevent accidental gun deaths.95% of all US gun owners believe that children should learn about gun safety. Guns don't kill people; people kill people. And people need more gun education and mental illness screening to prevent massacres. The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute, Inc (SAAMI), stated, "Whether in the field, at the range or in the home, a responsible and knowledgeable gun owner is rarely involved in a firearms accident of any kind." Heidi Cifelli, Former Program Manager of the NRA's Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program, stated, "Gun education is the best way to save young lives." The NRA states that the Eddie Eagle program is not meant to "teach whether guns are good or bad, but rather to promote the protection and safety of children… Like swimming pools, electrical outlets, matchbooks, and household poison, they're [guns] treated simply as a fact of everyday life." According to Kyle Wintersteen, Managing Editor of Guns and Ammo, studies show that "children taught about firearms and their legitimate uses by family members have much lower rates of delinquency than children in households without guns" and "children introduced to guns associate them with freedom, security, and recreation—not violence." Strict gun control laws do not work in Mexico, and will not work in the United States. Mexico has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world and yet, in 2012, Mexico had 11,309 gun murders (9.97 gun homicides per 100,000 people) compared to the United States that had 9,146 gun homicides (2.97 per 100,000 people). The country has only one legal gun store (the Directorate of Arms and Munitions Sales), compared to at least 63,709 legal gun stores and pawn shops in the United States as of Feb. 10, 2014. Mexico's gun store is on a secure military base and customers must present a valid ID, go through a metal detector, and turn over cellphones and cameras to guards. To actually buy a gun, customers have to show proof of honest income, provide references, pass a criminal background check, prove any military duties were completed with honor, and be fingerprinted and photographed. If allowed to purchase a gun, the customer may buy only one gun (choosing from only .38 caliber pistols or lower) and one box of bullets. Between 2006 and 2010, Mexico's one gun shop sold 6,490 guns, yet as of 2012, Mexicans own about 15,000,000 guns, or about 13.5 guns per 100 people.https://gun-control.procon.org... is where all of these arguments are from. My own input will probably come in next round.

positive: Should guns be legal firstly, a true law-abiding citizen would know how to make a law measure to solve a problem. acting as a vigilante with a murderous weapon while the police is there is surely not what a law-abiding citizen would do. secondly, having more guns will not solve any problem either, and if anything, will only create more chaos and disorder. there is no guarantee that these so called 'law-abiding citizens' will stay sane while they know that they live in a country where everyone has a gun concealed behind their back and the criminals run amok with more murderous type of guns which overpower the citizens'. even though there is a regulation to make sure that only sane person can have a gun, it will only nullify the first objective; that everyone, without exception, should be armed with guns to be able to protect themselves. now it is clear that allowing ALL citizens to have guns is wrong, and restricting the rules will only result in some people do not have a gun and cannot protect themselves.

positive: Gun Control The belief that enforcing stricter gun laws on those who use guns for good(gun owners who protect themselves, their families, and potentially prevent crimes) will keep guns off the streets(from those who buy guns off the black market rather than a gun store " obviously requiring no permit, no background check, etc) is very foolish. If this method were actually effective, then illegal drugs would not be an issue. Vilifying gun owners by imposing gun restrictions make it tougher for registered, law abiding gun owners from purchasing firearms and does nearly nothing to prevent real criminals from acquiring them. Is gun control the solution to deterring heinous acts and creating less crime? Gun control is legislation that is specifically aimed at imposing measures to make it harder for an individual to acquire a firearm. Gun control comes in many forms including mandatory licenses, background checks, waiting periods, and various others. As Alex Jones had said "When strict gun control laws are prevalent, the fear of getting shot goes away and criminals tend to flourish." which shows how something that is meant to prevent crime (gun control) actually contributes to crime. Individuals who go through the legal process and apply for a gun permit care about their own preservation of life. Someone does not apply for a gun permit in order to commit gun related crimes. It would be illogical for people to do such a thing because they would be identified immediately after committing such a crime. A true criminal isn't taking gun safety courses, obtaining a permit, paying the processing fee, or waiting a 2 day period to receive their firearm. The real criminals who have the intention of using firearms to commit illegal actions are buying a gun in some alley from the back of some guy's trunk. No aspect of gun control will prevent criminals from obtaining or using firearms. Background checks do very little good in preventing an individual from getting a gun; it only unnecessarily makes it more difficult for law abiding citizens. In 1999 Benjamin Smith was unable to pass a background check barring him from legally purchasing a firearm. Three days later he bought two handguns off the streets and went on a rampage killing two people and wounding nine others. During the 1992 Los Angeles riots USA Today reported that many of the people who scrambled to gun stores were "lifelong gun-control advocates, running to buy an item they thought they'd never need." They were actually infuriated by the fact that they had to legally wait 15 days to purchase the gun. Two other common misconceptions about potentially successful methods of gun control are either creating gun free zones or banning guns all together. Gun free zones create a false sense of peace of mind and security. If gun free zones stopped shootings, no one would go 60 mph in a 25 mph zone. The only people a gun free zone stops is a law abiding, gun carrying citizen who could stop a crime from happening rather than a maniac going on a shooting rampage. Banning guns is just as useless as the previous proposed method. If the federal government were to seek to outlaw guns, it would have as much success as has the drug war if not worse. Another reason the idea of outlawing guns is absolutely ludicrous is because it is our 2nd amendment right and it was written into the constitution for a very good reason. The real reason for the 2nd amendment is not known by most people. The 2nd amendment is in place to ensure that the citizenry of the United States always has the ability to exercise the explicit right to overthrow the elected government by force of arms. Citizens arm themselves to assure that they have safety from a government that takes away rights individually until forced to live in a police state. If such events were to happen and the civilian populace was unarmed, the government would be free to do anything it wants due to the civilians not being able to resist. Legislators need to realize what a threat gun control is to liberty and the fact that even though our rights are guaranteed by the constitution, it does not enforce anything. Guns do. As James Madison had said "Americans have the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the people of other countries, whose leaders are afraid to trust them with arms." This shows how we have the security of knowing we are safe from tyranny as long as we are armed. If you take a look at history you can see that history repeats its self. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao took the guns. Each a leader of a powerful nation that fell. As Ben Franklin has said "Never trust a government that doesn't trust its own citizens with guns" which clearly ended up being the truth as seen by the aforementioned leaders. Gun control is used to keep the oppressed from rising up. If the Jews were armed during the Holocaust or slaves in the United States had guns, they would have had a fighting chance. Not only does gun ownership protect the American populace from its own government, it protects us from foreign nations as well, which is best exemplified by Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's statement "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass." Confiscating guns is robbing the people of security. Prior restraints on rights are unconstitutional. The courts have ruled that an individual cannot use his freedom of speech to create panic but yelling fire in a crowded theater. Even so, no one argues that all the people attending the movie must have their mouths taped shut. The proper response is to punish the person who does commit the crime rather that placing prior restraints on innocent movie-goers. Likewise, the people should not have prior restraints on exercising their Second Amendment rights, rather persecute if the abuse that right. I believe that a large majority of people who oppose guns are not educated on the positive aspects of the tool and how it can be used for saving lives instead only of taking lives. A lot of the people who are pro-gun control are the people who don't have much knowledge or experience with guns and have only formulated opinions on them through the media. Most of which is biased and only displays firearms negatively. Many people have grown a fear of firearms through television and movies. When only seeing guns being wielded by bad guys in movies and seeing a news report of a shooting right after, guns are often associated with crime at a very young age. I believe that upon learning about statistics and analyzing the benefits instead of solely focusing on the negatives, one will more than likely change their mind. Unfortunately the facts and statistics that show the true nature of guns are not reported on new networks. Instead countless hours of air time is given to anti-gun lobbyists who are obsessed with gun control. As someone who desires to be a police officer in the future I would want most citizens to acquire a gun license and carry a gun. The statement "A gun in your hand is better than a cop on the phone."(Unknown) holds true as the national average police response time is about 10 minutes. If someone tries to break in to an individual's house, he can only call the police and wait for help. Now let's be realistic; no burglar needs10 minutes to break into a house. Therefore the homeowner must be able to defend themselves and their family if such a situation arises. Owning a firearm and knowing how to use it is the best defense one can have in such a situation. In many instances a gun doesn't even need to be discharged to deter a criminal; simply presenting a firearm can scare off an intruder. What many people don't know is that police cannot protect"and are not required to protect"every individual. Overall, guns in the United States are used 80 times more often to prevent crime and protect the lives of honest citizens than they are to take lives. Guns sales over the past 20 years have sparked, however firearm related homicides are now committed 39% less. People have used their firearms to protect themselves against assailants around 2.5 million times a year. The one and only thing a criminal is concerned with is not getting caught. That means that a criminal will avoid gun control precautions such as background checks, licenses, waiting period, etc. These forms of gun control prevent law abiding citizens from protecting themselves and the ones they love when necessary. Not only does it make it tougher to acquire a firearm it is also unconstitutional. Gun control is a form of unconstitutional prior restraint and it needs to be recognized as such. Guns protect us from criminals, psychopaths, governments at home and overseas. Some of the people who bring forth the opposition are not well aware of the widespread failure of such implementation of legislation in other countries and thus conclude that gun control is the only option. Guns are used 80 times more to save a live than to take a life and that alone should teach us alone the real value of firearms. Have I left anything out? I'd like to know what you think if you are anti-gun. What are your reasons for believing anti-gun legislation is the solution.

positive: Gun Control For the final round, I will be rebutting my opponent's Round 3 responses to my initial arguments.= Final Rebuttals =More Guns, Less CrimeEngland and Wales' homicide rate jumped following both gun restrictions, showing that gun control does not work in eliminating crime. The graph doesn't "look high" because England and Wales' homicide rate per million people were together in one graph. Remember, we are measuring the murder rate over time and how the trend changes when gun control laws are implemented. I have clearly shown that the murder rate rose, and that gun control does not work, especially not in this instance. Pro drops the facts I showed about how the crime rates in European countries with various gun laws were higher with more laws and lower with less.Pro then goes on to examine my source and pulls out the Chicago graph that measured the murder rate in response to the strict gun bans. The graph did fluctuate a bit but was also cut off at 2007, so allow me to provide some missing info: An Illinois concealed carry law was enacted in July 2013. The Chicago homicide rate of the first quarter of 2014 saw the rate at its lowest since 1958[1]. This is a significant change that "coincidentally" happened right after the ban on carrying guns was lifted.It is true that the UK's murder rate is slightly lower than America's, but it has been rising significantly ever since gun laws have been enacted. America has the highest ownership rate of guns in the world, with 90 guns per 100 people. If more guns means more crime, then that should mean that the United States has the highest crime rate in the world. However, the U.S.'s homicide rate is not in the top 10, or the top 50, or the top 100 - it's homicide rate per capita is #111, despite having so many guns[2]. Most of the countries above the U.S. are progressive countries with gun control laws, so the mantra that "more guns, more crime" is a very false one indeed. Indeed, the crime rate can be affected by different factors, but gun control ultimately has the largest effect since it directly targets the amount of guns used for crime.The "homicides with large anomalies unrelated to guns" in the UK graph means that homicides were committed using knives and other non-firearm weapons. This shows that even if criminals don't have guns, they will still find ways to commit crime without them. The large spike was the result of the criminal response to the UK gun ban in 1997.We must note that my opponent has not provided any counter evidence to suggest that gun control does reduce crime, he has just stated his issues with my evidence.Self-DefenseTheoretically a criminal may have a harder time finding a gun with gun control, but they will put more effort into to obtaining illegal guns and non-firearm weapons that will not make the homicide rate lower, as we have seen with several examples above.As for the objections to my sources 5 and 6, the people who used guns for self protection were actually 9%, not .9%. This plus 7% makes 16%. We must remember that the study was focused on defensive gun uses, which is the polar opposite of offensive or criminal uses. The rest of the data is simply not noted, so it is wrong to jump to conclusions.Pro looks at the introduction of my round 3 source 5 study instead of reading the rest of it. The last line of the introduction reads, "There is one study, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which in 1993, estimated 108,000 DGU's annually. Why the huge discrepancy between this survey and fourteen others?" The next section is titled "Dr. Kleck's Answer" where he uses multiple paragraphs to answer this question. Pro clearly has not read the rest of the study.GunCite.com is not at all biased. Just because the name includes the words "gun cite" does not mean it is anything seriously leaning toward one side. My opponent has attempted to dismiss the site because it's pro-gun, but that does not refute the numbers or data collection. In doing so he has committed the Genetic Fallacy[3]. Lastly, the article may be made in 2003, but the numbers and data are still as true today as they were then, so this is not even close to making the article wrong.Thanks a bunch for the debate Pro! It's been a pleasure.[1] http://www.ijreview.com...[2] Pro's source, Round 3[3] http://www.nizkor.org...

positive: Gun Control Washington DC proves that handgun bans are effective in preventing homicides and suicides The Philadelphia Inquirer, 2007 [What a handgun ban didn't do for D.C.: Is there a "smoking gun" that proves the efficacy of gun laws? Or are such claims based on illusion," April 9, Lexis] The D.C. law banning the purchase, sale, transfer or possession of handguns by civilians was enacted in 1976. In 1991, a group of researchers from the University of Maryland published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that examined the effect of the law on the frequency of homicides and suicides by looking at the period 1968 through 1987. The study concluded there was a "prompt decline" in homicides and suicides by firearms in D.C. not replicated in adjacent Maryland and Virginia jurisdictions without a handgun law. The data suggested that, after the law was enacted, an average of 47 deaths per year were prevented in D.C. Handgun bans are enforceable Leftwich, senior counsel of Legal Community Against Violence, 2006 [Juliet A., Pro-Gun Logic Is Wrong on the Facts, Sept 22, http://www.lcav.org...] Kates is also wrong when he claims that laws restricting access to firearms in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom are "unenforceable." On the contrary, it is because these laws have been so effectively enforced that gun-related death rates in those nations pale compared to those in the U.S. According to "The Global Gun Epidemic: From Saturday Night Specials to AK-47s" (2006), the 2001/2002 rates of firearm death per 100,000 for the countries in question are as follows: U.S.: 10.27; Canada: 2.6; Australia: 1.68; and England/Wales: .38. What this means is that I have evidence on gun control and you don't, shows it is enforceable and I already talked of the impact in my last post. All of your arguements fall, because I have proven gun control can work and be enforcable. I'm am not basing it on assumption either gun control leads to less guns in the hands of people, leads to less harm to people. States with the greatest number of guns in the home also have the highest rates of homicide, a new study finds. The study, in the February issue of Social Science and Medicine, looked at gun ownership in all 50 states and then compared the results with the number of people killed over a three-year period. The research, the authors said, 'suggests that household firearms are a direct and an indirect source of firearms used to kill Americans both in their homes and on the streets.' The researchers, led by Matthew Miller of the Harvard School of Public Health, drew on data gathered by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2001, the agency surveyed more than 200,000 people and asked them, among other questions, whether they had a gun in or near the home. In states in the highest quarter of gun ownership, the study found, the overall homicide rate was 60 percent higher than in states in the lowest quarter. The rate of homicides involving guns was more than twice as high. Although homicide rates may not rise – private handgun ownership increases suicide rates and accidental shootings which are not represented in homicide statistics The Philadelphia Inquirer, 2007 [What a handgun ban didn't do for D.C.: Is there a "smoking gun" that proves the efficacy of gun laws? Or are such claims based on illusion," April 9, Lexis] Miami Police Chief John Timoney, whose reign as top cop in Philadelphia brought a reduction in homicides to below 400 for the first time in a decade, said that if the decision overturning the handgun ban is affirmed, there is likely to be a rise in the number of suicides and accidental shootings. "And it won't necessarily be reflected in the homicide rate, because suicides and not-fatal shootings won't show up in those statistics," Timoney said. "You'll have an increase in those shootings . . . and opponents [of the ban] will say that the homicide rate didn't rise." Statistics Report 49, no. 8 (2001): 68. Myron Boor, "Methods of Suicide and Implications for Suicide Prevention," Journal of Clinical Psychology 37, (January 1981): 70-75. For all our fear and fascination with guns and homicide, the fact remains that most firearm deaths in America are not the result of homicide (10,828 for 1999), but suicide (16,599 for 1999). It is estimated that only 10 percent of suicides by firearms are committed with firearms purchased specifically for the act. Gun owners are more likely to commit suicide than non-gun owners Duggan, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland, 2003 [Mark, "Guns and Suicide," in Evaluating Gun Policy etd by Jens Ludwig and Philip J Cook, p 65] Individuals who own a gun are more likely to commit suicide than are other individuals. The results presented in this chapter demonstrate that much of the relationship between state-level gun ownership and suicide rates seems driven by a positive correlation between suicidal tendencies and gun ownership. The finding that the male-female suicide ratio is significantly greater in places with more gun ownership suggests that instrumentality effects may also partially explain this relationship, though one cannot rule out the hypothesis that gender-specific suicidal tendencies vary with the availability of guns. Finally, it appears that reductions in gun ownership have not been the driving force behind the fall in the suicide rate. Firearm-related domestic violence has disproportionately bad effects upon children Arthur Kellermann, MD, MPH, et al., "Firearms and Family Violence," Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America 17 (August 1999): 699-716, citing Ernest N. Jouriles et al., "Knives, Guns, and Interparent Violence: Relations with Child Behavior Problems," Journal of Family Psychology 12, no. 2 (1998): 178-194. The effects of firearm-related domestic violence last long beyond the actual crime. In a study on child witnesses of marital violence, the authors noted that children who observed incidents of domestic violence involving the use or threat of a firearm exhibited higher levels of behavior problems than children who did not. Firearm ownership negatively and disproportionately affects women James E. Bailey, MD, MPH, et al., "Risk Factors for Violence Death of Women in the Home," Archives of Internal Medicine 157, no. 7 (1997): 777-782. A 1997 study that examined the risk factors for violent death for women in the home found that when there were one or more guns in the home, the risk of suicide among women increased nearly five times and the risk of homicide increased more than three times. The increased risk of homicide associated with firearms was attributable to homicides at the hands of a spouse, intimate acquaintance, or close relative. Empirical evidence supports the conclusion that fewer guns mean fewer deaths Leftwich, senior counsel of Legal Community Against Violence, 2006 [Juliet A., Pro-Gun Logic Is Wrong on the Facts, Sept 22, http://www.lcav.org...] Kates rejects the "quasi-religious belief that more guns (particularly handguns) mean more violence and death, and, concomitantly, fewer guns mean fewer deaths." Yet this is precisely what the empirical evidence shows, as discussed by David Hemenway, director of Harvard's Injury Control Research Center, in his book "Private Guns, Public Health" (2004). Numerous studies have found that having a gun in the home is associated with an increased risk of unintentional firearm injury, suicide and homicide. Thus gun control leads to less guns, equals less death, meaning even suicide rates equal out gun violence, We need to cut that death down. Also I also have proven that gun ownership leads to a negative effect on women and children. Gun control works, and please, understand me, don't just base, a vote for the neg is a vote for more gun deaths and that is not safe to me.

positive: Gun Control Unlike what the liberal media wants you to believe, UK crime rates is another primary example in making argument against gun control " England introduced one of the most draconian gun control / ban policies in the western world, thereafter it is routinely on the top two of the most violent countries in the developed world and is significantly more violent than America! Note: I will reiterate that by stating "more guns means less crime" some people automatically assume it means that everyone should have a gun. That is not true; when we are talking about gun freedom and less crime, not everyone must have a firearm in order to lower the crime rate. What makes a society safe is the very freedom given to each and every individual to bear arms. This very notion in turn perpetually deters criminals and crazy individuals from committing crimes. US Violent Crime Rate on the Decline with More Guns In recent years, Americans have been buying guns at a record number. This is in spite of the fact that violent crime rate in the US is on a sharp decline according to the FBI"s very own study. Courtesy of FBI: "When considering 5- and 10-year trends, the 2011 estimated violent crime total was 15.4 percent below the 2007 level and 15.5 percent below the 2002 level." US violent crime rate fell from 757.7 per 100,000 in 1992 to 386.3 per 100,000 in 2011. During that same time period, the murder rate fell from 9.3 per 100,000 to 4.7 per 100,000. This was during an era when gun laws in the United States generally became much less restrictive. So why is such a massive media mobilization and attacks against firearms from the media and the government? Is it because of they are taking advantage of the American people"s emotion over rational and Facts, using the recent tragedies? After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn"t do it. I sure as heck wouldn"t want to live in a society where the only people who have guns are the police, military, and criminals. The 2nd Amendment: Gun Ownership is protected by the Constitution Most anti-gun advocates do not realize that unlike people in many other countries that have had their firearm forcefully taken away, the second amendment to the bill of rights is an unchangeable and unquestionable authority above the President and the Congress. Others rightly argue that because this is a right to self-defense, it is even above the Constitution; a God given right, it should never be taken away from the people regardless. Let"s note that the Founding Fathers were not government elitists or presidents who were elected by corporate interest lobbying millions of dollars funneled to their campaigns. They were exceptionally wise men who studied the history, governments, cultures, and societies that went before them and wanted nothing but the good and prosperity of the people and their republic; that is exactly why they were ready to sacrifice their lives in defense of liberty and freedom from the British Colonialism. Therefore, any governmental restrictions on guns imposed on American citizens is unconstitutional and would literary mean an attack on the Constitution. We have to recognize that the Constitution of the United States has been one of the greatest human rights legislation in history: an exemplary manuscript that gives power to the people over the government or corporations. It has led a nation into freedom and prosperity; while forcing its government and its branches to remain faithful to its citizens. We have to repeat this: we need to understand that the Constitution as a whole is exactly what gave rise to the greatness, freedom and prosperity of not only America, but many other nations who have mimicked it as an example. The Second Amendment: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." The Founding Fathers were very clear about this: "Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American peoples" liberty teeth and keystone under independence" From the hour the pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to ensure peace, security, and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable"The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference " they deserve a place of honor with all that is good." " George Washington" Founding Father and the 1st President of the United States) "A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves" and include all men capable of bearing arms. . . To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms" The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle." " Richard Henry Lee " American Revolutionary Led the American Declaration of Independence Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom? Congress shall have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American " The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the People." " Tench Coxe, 1788. "The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." " James Madison " (Founding Father and the 4th President of the United States) 7. Guns Save Numerous Lives by Far and Large Self-defense is the very basic right of each and every individual, not just in the US, but around the world people should be able to protect themselves and their families. It is easy to see the lives supposedly lost to "bad guns" through the corporate controlled and biased media, but do we ever see thousands of other lives saved by firearm ownership? No, because it supports gun ownership, something liberals and enemy"s, both foreign and domestic, don"t want to let people know about! Pearl High School, Mississippi: This incident began the morning of Oct. 1, 1997, when 16-year-old student Luke Windham entered the school with a rifle. Wearing only an orange jumpsuit and a trench coat and making no effort to hide his weapon, he initially entered the school and shot and killed two students, injuring seven others. He was stopped by assistant principal Joel Myrick, who retrieved a .45 cal. handgun from the glove box of his truck, stopped him. "I"ve always kept a gun in the truck just in case something like this ever happened," said Myrick at the time, who went on to become principal of Corinth High School, Corinth, Miss. Criminologist Gary Kleck estimates that 2.5 million Americans use guns to defend themselves each year. "Out of that number, 400,000 believe that but for their firearms, they would have been dead," " columnist Larry Elder wrote in July, following the shooting tragedy at the premier of the latest Batman movie in Aurora, Colo. "We know from Census Bureau surveys that something beyond 100,000 uses of guns for self-defense occur every year," " Professor Emeritus James Q. Wilson, a public policy expert at the University of California-Los Angeles. "We know from smaller surveys of a commercial nature that the number may be as high as two-and-a-half or three million. We don"t know what the right number is, but whatever the right number is, it"s not a trivial number." It is reported that more than 200,000 women use guns in the US for protections from rappers, robbers and thugs. Now the question is this: are we going to take that away from the bit by bit, bullet by bullet through restrictions and legislation after legislation? 6. Banning Guns Does Not Mean Criminals Won"t Get Them "If guns are outlawed only outlawed will have guns" It is foolish to assume that any type of gun control proposition would mean criminals would turn their guns in or would not access guns. As a matter of fact they will more easily monopolize guns in a nation where guns were previously an individual right; gun sales and trafficking will most assuredly become easier only for criminals. Again, historical examples in banning drugs and alcohol point to this very fact. Simply look at the mess the "War on Drugs" has become in America. Gun control only means that the guns will be taken out of the hands of million law-abiding American, most of whom use them for protection, most of whom have never even shot a live target, never mind a human, and they go right into the hands of the criminals. While criminals will never turn their guns in, it is always the regular citizenry who will be left defenseless. For example Mexico imposes some of the most strictest gun control laws, yet over 50,000 people die in the hands of criminal on yearly basis. Another great example is the gun control laws introduced in Australia, which caused a massive spike in nearly every crime rate category. 5. Switzerland: A Low Crime, High Gun Ownership Modern Country The gun example of the country of Switzerland is so great and telling that we had to make it as a single point in our top 10 gun freedom list. The Swiss government not only does NOT impose any gun restrictions on their population but they literary demands that every household have a gun. And did you know that the Swiss government actually trains every adult on guns when they purchase a weapon. So how do crime rates fair in Switzerland? With all the guns available in the hands the Swiss people and based on the points above it should be an easy guess. Switzerland is the safest country in the modern world; one of the safest in the world. 4. Knives and Bats Kill More People: Guns are also Inanimate Objects It is yet another evidence against any gun control laws that bats, knives and other inanimate objects are the cause for the loss of many more lives than the use of guns. Therefore it is absolutely irrational to impose any type of gun control on the population. Statistically Americans are more likely to be killed by a baseball bat than a rifle. But that is besides the point that an inanimate object does not kill, it is a criminal that kills. "To blame a gun for man"s decision is to foolishly attribute free will to an inanimate object." 3. Dangerous Psychiatric Drugs Not the Inanimate Guns In almost every shooting there has been another undeniable trend; every single one of the recent crazed shooters have been one some sort of psychiatric mind altering drugs promoted and sponsored by the corrupt media. This trend is most noticeable in the Aurora massacre, Colorado and Sandy Hook shooting. It is astonishing how the corporate media quickly points figures at the guns but not the crazed individuals who has been having his brained chewed by these dangerous drugs, which most TV stations proudly sponsor. Nearly every major school shooter has been on prescriptions drugs! 2. Governments Cannot Help the Victims Many still are under the delusion that if guns are confiscated government will protect them against criminals. Again, case after case historically we have witnessed that not to be true. When a government strips the regular citizenry from their right to defend themselves, they will almost always put innocents directly into the lion"s den;- defenseless. Most 911 emergency calls are responded no quicker than 5 minutes. An insane criminal (on dangerous anti-represented and other mental drugs of course) in most cases will have finished his dirty act in less than a minute, or at least caused enough damage to make it an unfortunate tragedy. 1. Defense against a Tyrannical Government One of the greatest and most widely misunderstood facts about the Second Amendment is that some still tend to think that it was including for "hunting". The Second Amendment was NOT put in the Bill of Rights for hunting!; the Second Amendment gives the regular citizenry the right to defend themselves, against thugs and criminals but more importantly it was put firmly in place by the wise founding fathers to protect the people against the rise of any tyrannical government; whether a single dictator, a government tainted by lobbyists, a government directed by corporate interest of banks and financiers. It is important to realize that every tyrant in our recent history aimed to Recent history is filled with many chilling examples over and over again; where they take guns, state imposed tyranny brews shortly. Millions of innocent people have fall prey to their government, in the biggest cause of human lives called Democide. "In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. "In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians under Turkish rule, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. "In 1938 Germany established gun control. From 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million innocent Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated. "In 1935 China established gun control. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated "In 1964 Guatemala established gun control. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. "In 1970 Uganda established gun control. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. "In 1956 Cambodia established gun control. From 1975 to 1977, one million educated people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. "Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century because of gun control: 56 million. Top 6 Quotes " What did Tyrannical Dictators and Governments Have Said about Guns? "Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don"t let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?" " Joseph Stalin " Russian Dictator "Death solves all problems. No man, no problem" " Joseph Stalin "The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so." " Adolf Hitler "Those now possessing weapons and ammunition are at once to turn them over to the local police authority. Firearms and ammunition found in a Jew"s possession will be forfeited to the government without compensation. The Minister of the Interior may make exceptions to the Prohibition in "1 for Jews who are foreign nationals. He can entrust other authorities with this power. Whoever willfully or negligently violates the provisions of "1 will be punished with imprisonment and a fine. In especially severe cases of deliberate violations, the punishment is imprisonment in a penitentiary for up to five years." " 1938 Nazi Law (Regulations Against Jews" Possession of Weapons) "Political power comes out of the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns, that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party."." - Mao " Communist Chinese Dictator "For the first time in history does a nation have complete gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient. The world will follow our lead in the future." " Adolph Hitler, 15 April 1935, in address to the Reichstag Top 10 Quotes " What Did American Patriots Say about Guns and Liberty? 10. "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." " Patrick Henry" Founding Father 9. "The right of the citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible." " Senator Hubert Humphrey 8. "Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property" Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them." - Thomas Payne- (American Revolutionary) 7. "It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from his government" " Thomas Payne- (American Revolutionary) 6. "The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference " they deserve a place of honor with all that"s good." " George Washington" Founding Father and the 1st President of the United States) 5. "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them"" " Richard Henry Lee" American Revolutionary who Led the American Declaration of Independence 4. "When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."- Thomas Jefferson" (Founding Father and 3rd President of the United States) 3. "And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms "."- Thomas Jefferson" (Founding Father and 3rd President of the United States) 2. "To disarm the people is the best and most effective way to enslave them"" " George Mason" (Founding Father of the United States " Most influential in institution of the Bill of Rights) 1. "The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take It." "Thomas Jefferson" (Founding Father and the 3rd President of the United States) The choice is clear here; It is FREEDOM or TYRANNY and disarmament is the first step towards tyranny " a recipe for disarmament of the citizens and/or their future children. If the Americans to support the rest of their freedoms they have to stand by and protect their second amendment, even if you as an individual personally does not like guns or does not like to be around them. Sources: http://infowars.com... http://NaturalNews.com... http://fbi.gov...

positive: Gun Control in the United States Thank you for your response. I'd first like to address that gun control is only a factor in reducing gun crimes. I am not saying that enacting more gun laws would completely erase all gun crime, but is an essential component. As you stated, places such as New York, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Connecticut have had mass shootings, yes. But the vast majority of states with fewer gun laws, like Texas, have had mass shootings to. These are uncommon incidents that don't happen everyday. If you look at the bigger picture, the gun laws in places such as New York result in fewer gun crimes. My argument that gun laws reduce gun crimes is still valid. My opponent talks about how my source doesn't speculate why there are less murders. First of all, this website was about the facts, not the reasons. Secondly, it's difficult to comprehend why the murder rate is low in these states becuase there are many factors to consider. In my opponent's third paragraph, he explains that the source I used was against gun control. I was only showing the graph that showed how the United States has a far higher gun murder rate than any other country. I'd like to point out that my opponent stated that gun laws in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Palestine, are "non existent," that is not the case. In Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, there are many gun laws. In Palestine, there are no gun laws but only 125,000 people posses a gun. Do you know the how many people reside in Palestine? 4,000,000. I'd also like to point out that in Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq, the amount of guns purchased is low and the population in these countries is high. It's also problematic to compare Canada to Iraq because countries like Palestine are under military occupation, making it more difficult to obtain a gun. My opponent claims that Chicago has the highest amount of violence, I agree. But Chicago also has the highest amount of gangs in the United States. Also, Chicago is one of the many cities in Illinois and is only one area. http://www.zeigen.com... In the graph, you can see that there is a dip in 1934. In 1934, the National Firearm Act was founded and murder rate went down drastically. This was after the law was enacted. These might be reasons why murder rate went down. In 1990, the Crime Control Act was made as well as Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act in 1994. After those laws passed, gun violence went down again. As you can see, gun violence and gun laws have a strong correlation. Again, I want to remind my opponent and the audience that gun control laws and murder rate is only a factor. Lastly, I'd like to point out that my opponent didn't give any sources about the other countries laws and gave false information. He also didn't provide a claim on why we shouldn't have gun laws. Looking forward to your response. http://www.gunpolicy.org... http://www.gunpolicy.org... http://www.gunpolicy.org... http://www.gunpolicy.org... http://www.zeigen.com... http://www.infoplease.com... http://en.wikipedia.org...

positive: Gun Control (Copy #2) Owning firearms is a right. The current gun control laws in the United States should not be increased and if anything should be abolished. Guns do not cause violence, deranged individuals do. Statistics show that in areas with increased gun control there are more gun related crimes. Gun control only helps the criminal. "Assault weapons" should not be banned, or any other firearm. The original purpose of the 2nd amendment was to be the last line of defense against tyranny, armed civilians are essential to protecting liberty. Lastly, a moral argument: government does not have the right to tell an individual what they can or cannot have as long as they do not hurt another person or violate another persons civil liberties. Owning a firearm of any kind is a human right as firearms in the modern world are necessary for self defense from enemies. (This is my first debate on this website, please excuse any formatting errors, etc.)

positive: Guns should be legal for home defense in the U.S. There is a fundamental right to self-defense I cited the American founders, Jefferson's “No [citizen] shall be debarred the use of arms within his own lands....” I acknowledged “the right of self-defense is not absolute” and pointed to the Supreme Court's decision that while the right to defend one's home could not be infringed, there could be gun free zones elsewhere. Con said that Locke derived the right of self-defense from a right to liberty, which is fine with me. Con then dropped discussion of rights, saying I had conceded something. I didn't. We are talking about defense of one's home and family. It is not a question of weighing the harm that might be dealt to the person breaking and entering against the harm the criminal might do to you and your family. The right of self-defense takes precedence. Con pronounces the castle doctrine immoral. I suspect he misunderstands the doctrine. In all cases of self defense, both in the home and outside of it, a jury must decide that the person using lethal force reasonably believed he was under threat of great bodily harm. The castle doctrine says that there is a legal presumption that if a criminal breaks into your home – not wanders in because you left the door open – that there is a reasonable presumption of threat of harm. The presumption can still be overcome. If the person breaking and entering is reasonably identified as posing no threat, then the presumption is overcome. For example, if its a sunny day and the homeowner sees that the person breaking and entering is an unarmed child, then use of potentially lethal force is unreasonable. The doctrine only has effect when there is doubt, as with an unidentified break-in at night. The castle doctrine is a fine point of law. Some states have it and some do not. The resolution is whether there are any circumstances when a homeowner should be allowed to legally possess a gun for self-defense. Guns are the only practical means of self-defense One might argue that while there is a right to self-defense, that guns could be banned in favor of some other means of self-defense. I argued that there is now no practical alternative to guns. That's what the Supreme Court ruled in the Washington DC case that voided the District's prohibition on guns. Con did not contest this point, and did not offer any alternative effective means of self-defense. I believe that once Con grants a fundamental right to self-defense and further grants that guns are the only realistic means of self-defense, then the resolution is affirmed. You cannot have a right to self-defense and then ban the only means of asserting the right. It would be like affirming a right to free speech while denying all use of communications media. Con seems to recognize this situation. At the end of the last round he didn't assert that all guns should be illegal for home defense, but rather only asserted that there ought to be more restrictions. I will continue with the practical arguments, although they cannot deny the resolution. The benefits of guns outweigh the disadvantages Con dropped my arguments that banning guns would have a negligible effect on suicide rates. Japan has twice the suicide rate with a strict gun ban, and the suicide rate in Washington DC was unchanged by a gun ban. Con dropped my argument that accidental deaths from guns are way below the levels of other hazards that are not banned. Con argued a fundamental right was inconsistent with background checks and safety training. I argued that minimal restrictions can be placed upon fundamental rights, so long as they are not a significant impediment to practicing the right. That's true of all fundamental rights. However, the resolution is to completely abolish the right by making self-defense illegal. Illegality would not eliminate guns In the last round, Con argued that he if guns are made illegal in the US they will not be available illegally. He cites evidence that guns have became scarce in the UK and Japan after being made illegal, so he imagines that might be the case in the US as well. He did not respond to my previous argument that drugs have been made illegal in the U.S. and despite vigorous attempts at enforcement there are plenty of illegal drugs available. Nations differ in the forces of cultural and tradition at work. Drugs are illegal in Japan, and sure enough there are few illegal drugs available illegally there. Not so in the US. I pointed out that drugs are an easier problem in the sense that a continuous supply is required, while guns are durable. During the civil war in Northern Ireland, large numbers of illegal arms were smuggled into the U.K., despite vigorous enforcement attempts. It cannot therefore be the case that enforcement is easy. The problem has to with what the society as a whole wants and tolerates. Con argues that in the US most guns ultimately come from legal sources. Even if broadly banned in the U.S, most guns would still ultimately derive from legal sources. Russia and South Africa are two sources of export, for example, and guns are not hard to get in Canada. Our debate is about guns for home defense. The probability of total gun ban in the U.S. is zero because hunting is so common, and so is use for protection from animals. People hunt for basic food in Alaska, parts of the northern Rockies, and in the rural South. In Alaska, people carry a 45 pistol to go to the bathroom – the bathroom being an outhouse and Alaska having 50,000 bears. In my area in California, a man shot a mountain lion perched in a tree above a school bus stop; the event merited only a single paragraph in the local paper. There are now about 300 million legal guns in the U.S., and with most unlicensed there is no prospect of rounding them up. Studies show effective deterrence The data I cited on defensive use of firearms was prepared by the Center for Disease Control at the request of President Obama. There have been more than a dozen studies of the use of weapons for self-defense, and the CDC concluded that defensive use, mostly to scare off criminals, vastly out numbered offensive use. The CDC study is likely because the CDC is expert in statistical analysis, has no apparent prejudices, and looked at all of the surveys done in the field. If they do have a bias, it would likely be an anti-gun bias in trying to please a liberal president. Con did not address the CDC study. Con cites criticism the DGU. I have no idea what that is. The criticism is that more rapes are claimed to be deterred than were reported in a separate crime victims study. Many of these surveys depend upon just how questions are asked. A deterred rapes may be significantly under reported in a victims survey. Con cites Kellerman. The study compares the rare event of a self-defense shooting in the home with more common events like suicides. [19. http://tinyurl.com...] There were only seven cases of self-defense shootings in the study, so the ratios are misleading. The study shows that citizens are careful, and that guns are usually used to scare off criminals rather than shoot them. Con cites Cheng and Hoekstra. That paper confuses castle doctrine laws with stand-your-ground laws and mixes data from non-confrontational crimes unlikely to be affected. “Cheng and Hoekstra suggested these laws affect crime rates. If true, the data show adopting all three “castle doctrine” laws causes a noticeable decrease in violent crime. “ [20. http://tinyurl.com... ] Con charges that gun ownership is a “crutch, or even a fetish.” No it's just cultural. Shooting is the national sport of Switzerland. About 30% of Swiss households have guns, compared to about 42% in the U.S. The Swiss have far more fully automatic weapons. They openly carry guns to the various shooting festivals and consider it a sign of wholesome living. [21. http://tinyurl.com...] They have a non-violent society. Guns do not cause violence. ------- Con may not introduce new arguments or evidence in his final round. [DR 4]

positive: Resolved: Guns should be Banned from civilians R1: Gun Culture Gun culture is irrelevant. Do you think that culture compares to the deaths caused by guns? Clearly not and I will elaborate on this point further in my contentions. R2: Little Effect In Certain States We aren't talking about certain states. Even my opponent admits that a gun ban wont have much of an effect in certain states this means that it still will have an effect, just not on a large enough scale. We aren't just talking about Vermont. One example out of 50 states is not a valid reason to introduce a gun prohibition. It is evident that there are multiple factors involved. This is evident since there are other areas with exactly the same conditions (in terms of no gun control). You have to also look at the job and housing quality. Education is also a key factor since depending on the quality of education people may have weaker moral standards that do not coincide with our universal morality. R3: Guns are used for self-defense This is the main argument I expected from my opponent. Guns don’t kill people, children do. Cassie Culpepper, age 11, was riding in the back of a pickup when her 12-year-old brother pointed his father’s pistol at her. He believed he had removed the bullets, and so jokingly pulled the trigger. He was wrong. Since January 1st, there have been 11 reported gun fatalities involving preschool children as the shooter. Ten more toddlers have accidentally shot themselves or somebody else this year. And this statistic represents only data for which a toddler is the shooter in a death (71 children have been killed by guns since Newtown). The BBC originally reported on this phenomenon in 2009 when, in the span of 24 hours, two children were shot by their toddler siblings. In both cases, the deaths were a result of improperly secured weapons. A New York Times’ piece added to the controversy showing that, due to idiosyncrasies over what constitutes a ‘homicide’ or an ‘accident’, child firearm accidental killings happen roughly twice as much as they are reported in national databases. These deaths, quite obviously, could have been avoided had any adult, at any point in time, exercised even a modicum of discretion concerning the availability of their firearm. Our outrage towards these deaths should be proportional to how senseless they are, how utterly avoidable they were. We put child-locks on our medicine cabinets, secure our pools with gates, put on helmets during bike rides, and we give our 12-year-old boys a rifle to play with in the backseat of a truck. Wouldn’t want him to get bored. After all, the only way to stop a bad child with a gun is a good child with a gun. Would you kill children just so people could defend themselves? These are only the examples involving children. I will mention the examples involving everybody in general as part of one of my contentions. R4: Illegal guns/ Pro's of CCW Whilst these guns my be illegal it would be extemely difficult to gain possession of these guns if they weren't sold legally. Nearly 200,000 guns were reported lost or stolen last year, according to federal data. The following table shows the number of guns reported stolen and the number of guns reported missing in National Crime Information Center. Statistics include firearms reported stolen by private individuals and Federal Firearms Licensees. Here is a link to the table: (http://www.governing.com...)It contain the precise statistics of guns stolen in each of the states. I do not doubt the credibility of my opponent's statistics although my statistics prove that with a gun ban guns will be much harder for people to posses - both legally and illegally. C1 - AccidentsThis contention links in with my previous rebuttal regarding self defense although in this case it is more general and applies to not only children. Car crashes killed 33,561 people in 2012, the most recent year for which data is available, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Firearms killed 32,251 people in the United States in 2011, the most recent year for which the Centers for Disease Control has data. But this year gun deaths are expected to surpass car deaths. That's according to a Center for American Progress report, which cites CDC data that shows guns will kill more Americans under 25 than cars in 2015. More than a quarter of the teenagers—15+ - who die of injuries in the United States are killed in gun-related incidents, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. An analysis by Bloomberg three years ago found shooting deaths in 2015 "will probably rise to almost 33,000, and those related to autos will decline to about 32,000, based on the 10-year average trend.""Comparing the two national icons, cars and guns, yields “a statistic that really resonates with people," says Chelsea Parsons, co-author of the report for the Centre for American Progress. Resonance is certainly needed. There are about 320 [million] people in the United States, and nearly as many civilian firearms. And although the actual rate of gun ownership is declining, enthusiasts are keeping up the number in circulation." The Economist C2 - The risk of mass shooting Knowing that my opponent is from America, I am almost certain that they have heard of at least one of the mass school shootings in recent years. There have been over 150 school shootings in the last 50 years in the USA alone! That is not an exaggeration and I will provide multiple sources for this statistic just to remove any doubt from voters and my opponent. Now, lets compare that to the UK. The Uk has had 1 school massacre in the last 50 years and this was considered to be one of the deadliest firearms incidents in UK history. I didn't need to do much reasearch to realise that this school shooting was a lot less severe than the ones in the USA in terms of deaths. In this horrific event 1 teacher and 16 children were shot (not all of them were killed). Now let us compare this to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. This resulted in 20 children killed fatally shot and killed. 6 adult member of staff were also shot and killed. Adam Lanza (the shooter) then added to the death tally by commiting suicide on the scene of shooting. As well as this there were 2 non fatal injuries too. Although this may not be entirely relevant to this particular contention, the mass murderer also shot and killed his mother before the shooting. This is another reason as to why guns should be banned. Even with tighter regulation this will not completely elimate the possibility of this happening. I doubt that my opponent is pro school shootings. Since he is 15 and goes to school himself I would have thought that even one school shooting would have pursuaded him to be pro a gun ban. One school shooting is not worth having a gun for self defense. If you had the choice to keep guns for self defense or save those kids (and adults) who were killed in the Sandy Hook elementary school mass shooting what would you choose? By being Con a gun ban this essentially means that you would choose the guns over the children. C4 - Effect on homicide ratesGuns in the home are far more likely to kill a family member or friend than an intruder because as far as homicides go, you are far more likely to be killed by someone you know than by a stranger. According to an article in University of Chicago Law Review by Frank Zimring, a criminology expert at UC Berkeley, more than two-thirds of killings are caused by spouses, lovers, friends, or neighbors. Zimring examines crime statistics in Chicago and breaks the numbers down by type of weapon, number of wounds, and location of the wounds. He finds that when the wound location was clearly intended to cause death, the use of a firearm instead of the next deadliest weapon (a knife) increased the chance of death of the victim by a factor of 5. This is called the "instrumentality effect" of guns.In a broader analysis in Guns in America, Zimring and Hawkins continue to debunk the myth that if guns were not widely available, people would just find another way to kill each other (the classic "guns don't kill people, people do" argument). They point out that "if this were so, knife attacks in cities where guns were not so widely used would show a higher fatality rate" due to the expected substitution effect. But no such trend exists. Guns simply facilitate certain killings that would otherwise not be possible. As an example, Zimring and Hawkins explain that since guns are both more deadly and more versatile (can be used from a distance), they are used almost exclusively in police killings. Lastly, Zimring/Hawkins cite another study proving the instrumentality effect of guns: comparing wounds in the same location, attacks with higher caliber guns were much more likely to result in death than attacks with lower caliber guns. Without guns, altercations (usually between family members and friends) would be much less likely to result in a fatal injury. A study by Kellerman found that people were 2.7 times more likely to be murdered in a home with a firearm than in a home without one, further underscoring the predominance of family/friend murders among the homicide statistics. For the same reason, a regression analysis done by Mark Duggan in "More Guns, More Crime" found that looking at time lag data, local increases in gun ownership are soon followed by localized increases in homicide rates. To understand the next study, we must first explore a legal distinction. A common misconception is that "assault" means an attack. However, in terms of the legal definition, "battery" means a violent attack and "assault" is a threat of bodily harm. Normally, an assault should result in nothing more than an argument, but the presence of a gun makes it much more likely than an assault will turn deadly. Zimring found that assaults (read: threats) were 7 times more likely to result in death if the aggressor possessed a firearm. Sources in comments.

positive: gun control Too many criminals purchase guns legally and use them to commit crimes. Buyers that purchase firearms through private sales in the U.S. don't have to pass a background check before obtaining possession of the weapon. This includes sales to criminals, felons, and people with a history of severe mental illness. Close to 33,000 Americans were victims of gun-related deaths in 2011 and an average of 268 citizens are shot every day. Having a legal gun doesn"t mean crime is going to stop those that have them legal are going to commit crime too, I know is not possible to get rid off of every illegal guns but we also have to get rid of those that are legal in the wrong hand.

positive: gun control Hunting to me is a very legitmate reason to have a gun, I'm not with Peta, My sister lives in the uk, And my family is from Holland (the Netherlands) getting a hunting weapon is not that hard, A fire arm for self defense is almost unheard in Holland, In the UK it is explicitly prohibited. . Again if you keep a gun in your home you are 5 times more likely to shoot a loved one or yourself. Nations that have strict gun laws are almost always safer places to live.

positive: Gun control is a stupid idea So, my opponent chooses to simply declare my sources unreliable.http://www.liberales-waffenrecht.de...Well, this picture is taken from the official police statistics in Germany, and it is found on a site called "Liberales Waffenrecht", and even people who can't understand German will be able to tell what "liberal" means. This site advocates a liberalization of gun control, yet provides the same statistic: a decrease in gun related deaths in SPITE of German gun control.Here's the article to which this relates, you can clearly see the title above.http://www.liberales-waffenrecht.de...So, despite my opponent's desperate claims, my statistics are factual and official, and are even used by opponents of gun control.The resolution claims gun control to be a stupid IDEA. Ideas are not bound to national borders, nor has the opening resolution shown any indication of national restrictions.In Germany and the UK, gun control has proved to be a very good idea, with the death rate by guns being significantly lower than in the USA.My opponent now wants to expand on his original argument.He claims that laws serve as restrictions to freedom. So, we are now arguing that all laws are bad because they limit freedom? Did my opponent not say that "Criminals don't obey laws" anyway?So, the discussion about laws is - by the parameters set by my opponent - totally irrelevant and serves as a mere distraction here.Then my opponent talks about Nazi Germany, which is the classic "appeal to the extremes" fallacy. We do not live in Nazi Germany. And to believe that gun control was a substantial part in the genocide is totally unfounded. Germany, as opposed to the USA, has never had a history of armed resistance against the government.We were originally discussing "one thing": "What would stop criminals from illegally obtaining guns and using it on an armless public?"Now we are apparently discussing "tyranny"? Another distraction.But Germany has had the worst tyranny ever, and despite gun control the tyranny has not broken out again. So, there's no indication that gun control leads to tyranny. In fact, Germany and the USA are allies."The constitution allows Americans the right to bear arms as a personal right because the founding fathers recognized the threat of tyranny and the need for self-defense."Oh, do we have witness accounts for that or is that just an inductive conclusion?"The threat of tyranny still exists in our modern world today and is a very valid reason for having the rights to own and use a gun."I say it's not in our society. Tyranny can be found in countries where armed militia roam the streets and there is no gun control in effect. Provide proof of your allegation.As for my explicit SIDE-NOTE:Thanks for your opinion on this. It does, however, not pertain to our debate, so I will not delve much deeper into this."Gun control commits the fallacy of assuming that guns in circulation will be eliminated once gun control laws are enacted. They won't."My opponent does not know the future. In Australia, guns have been collected and the number of gun related deaths has decreased."In 1997, Australia implemented a gun buyback program that reduced the stock of firearms by around one-fifth. Using differences across states in the number of firearms withdrawn, we test whether the reduction in firearms availability affected firearm homicide and suicide rates. We find that the buyback led to a drop in the firearm suicide rates of almost 80 per cent, with no statistically significant effect on non-firearm death rates. The estimated effect on firearm homicides is of similar magnitude, but is less precise. The results are robust to a variety of specification checks, and to instrumenting the state-level buyback rate."http://ftp.iza.org...So, fact again goes against the precognition of my opponent.I will under no circumstances try to imagine how the mind of an addict works. Only an addict can understand that."Guns are self-defense for the vast majority of responsible gun owners" - which, as I pointed out, will not be negatively affected by gun control."protection from the threat of tyranny" - criminals, about which this debate is, will not protect society from tyranny."and common sense to acknowledge guns won't be removed from circulation once gun control laws are enacted." And fact in Australia and Germany goes against this alleged "common sense".A final question for my opponent: If we do not control guns, will that not just mean guns are far more easily accessible to NON-RESPONSIBLE gun owners and criminals? Will this not put the RESPONSIBLE gun-owners who can easily obtain a permit under gun control in disadvantage?My opponent's arguments make little sense in that regard. Gun control is not about taking all guns away, it's about leaving guns only in the hands of responsible gun owners.It is thus not a stupid idea.

positive: Should all guns be banned It doesn't matter if we pass a law against guns. Because there is such a thing as the black market, criminals can and will get their hands on guns whenever they want. Only safe gun owners will hand over their guns, and when a criminal comes into their house, they will have no means of self defense. Banning guns will only cause crime rates tol increase and cause the black market to grow.

positive: Gun control I'm pretty new to politics, and I was hoping for a friendly debate Here's my argument: The idea is straightfoward and simple, take away guns and violence will decrease. However, research has shown that gun control allows further violence and destruction upon a nation. The fact that more than 99% of all LEGAL US gun owners have not used their registered weapon for crime show that you are in fact disarming law abiding citizens, potentially putting them in danger of criminals and murderers. Gun laws in cities and states show that. For example, Chicago is the most dangerous city in the nation and one of the most violent in the world, while the state of vermont, which has relatively low gun laws, is one the most safe places in the US. Also, if you look at countries, you will also see that countries such as switzerland have very low crime rates, while countries such as Mexico have some of the highest crime rates.

positive: Gun Control is Bad Since this is the second rebuttal I will do my best to "shoot down" your points. It sounded good in my head I promise. I would like to start this rebuttal off by saying that whether or not an economics professor is related to gun control is irrelevant, as the quote still has merit when discussing the topic. What it means is that you should judge a policy not by what is supposed to happen but by what actually happens. This relates to gun control because people who advocate it believe in the idea of taking away guns, and never judge the policy by its history of flawed results. Then this lovely quote was made by my opponent in an attempt to rebut my point that gun control falls flat on its face in practice: "Has it ever really been used in practice? No, we're scared to change our laws." That is a lie. Gun control has been used in practice. Let's look at Venezuela, the country that is number one on the international crime index yet has a total gun ban. We can even look back to my first argument, in which I pointed out that 92% of mass shootings occur in "gun free zones", and that enormous spikes in gun crime occured in Australia when they implemented a gun ban. In 1987, the National Institute of Justice found that after the implementation of Canada's 1977 gun controls prohibiting handgun possession for protection, the "breaking and entering" crime rate rose 25%. Not only that, but the U.S. government itself has found no proof that gun laws are effective in reducing crime. Of course, my opponent's response to all this is predictable. Since what I just typed isn't counterbalanced by peppy anecdotes or corny quips, it is invalid and will be glossed over by my opponent. My opponent then brings up a graph and tells me to imagine how the graph would look in a world without guns. I know exactly what it would look like. The amount of knife victims would skyrocket, along with the personal weapons and blunt weapons categories. That is, of course, if a world without guns is even possible. I would like my opponent to know that I do think outside the box, but only after I use common sense. I would like for my opponent to tell me how he plans for the 270 million gun owners in the U.S. to have their guns taken away without any repercussions of insane proportions. "In a world without guns, would those 2.5 million people need to protect themselves in the first place?" Technically yes. As I stated before, a criminal is not motivated by their weapon, they are motivated by other things. Robbers rob for money or stuff they didn't have before. Murder happens usually because of harsh feelings towards someone or something or their victim was just in the way. Those 2.5 million people wouldn't have the perfect scare tactic to ward off an offender, yet the offender would most likely have another weapon, like a knife, club, or homemade bomb. "Do you live in some kind of bizarre, alternate reality where shootings happen every minute?" The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (in the fall of 1995) found that since people defend themselves 2.5 million times a year, that means more than 6,500 people defend themselves a day, or once every 13 seconds. So yes, I do live in some kind of bizarre, alternate reality where shootings happen every minute. "You'll only need to use a gun about once in your lifetime, if at all. Why pay $100 for it?" Because I want to save 8 times as many people as the police would save in a shooting situation. To quote you, Frankfurter50, "use your head, for gosh sakes". "If there are a lot of shootings, we need to amp up our police force, not give more people guns". As great of an idea this sounds, the world doesn't work this way. I have shown you the 1/8th statistic which shows that when you wait for the police to arrive, more people die, and all you responded with was a video which did not have much relation to the topic. I, however, have evidence that proves giving more people guns helps reduce crime. In 1982, in the Atlantan suburban of Kennesaw, Georgia, passed a law that required heads of households to always keep at least one firearm in their house. The residential burglary rate dropped a crazy 89% (Gary Kleck, "Crime Control Through the Private Use of Armed Force". Sadly though, this crucial fact won't have much impact. My opponent has not responded to any of my factual arguments but merely dismissed them as "dull, useless statistics", while hyping up his one graph as "undeniable, cold, hard truth". I would like to know my opponent's take on all my "dull, useless statistics". How does he decipher the fact that most mass shootings occur in "gun free zones", or that criminals are more worried about armed victims than they are of the police, or that places in which owning a gun is mandatory had a lot less crime? Or how about the fact that gun bans caused a spike in crime? I am curious as to how my opponent will respond. "Guns don't kill people. But they play a big part in it". Just as spoons don't make people fat, but they play a big part in it. RIght, guys and gals? I am ready for my opponents next argument.

positive: Gun Control Laws The laws that are in place make the guns illegal, that is why they are called "illegal guns." Without the proper enforcement it makes it possible for these people to obtain these illegal guns. More gun control law enforcement is what is needed to prevent these tragedies. These laws are key to stopping tragedies that would occur in a no gun control world. In your world, a world without gun control, it would make it easy to obtain guns for any person. Whether they be a hunter or a killer. So why should there be no gun control laws? Also your "evidence" states that when gun control laws are enacted violence goes up, but you refuse to give the "why" to that argument. My evidence provides the reason why gun violence increases, and that reason is poverty. My stats directly answer yours for this fact. --- On your conclusion: Your first point says that poverty does not have any relation to gun violence. Again, that has been disproved by my stats and your own statement. Poverty is a leading cause to gun violence, and cutting down on gun violence the key reason for enacting gun control laws. On your second point I have an empirical example. England has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world and their gun violence is extremely low per capita. Also, I sight Canada's 1977 gun control laws (see above argument) and show that Canada's gun violence is also extremely small per capita. On your third point, you have not proven why no gun control leads to less gun violence because you do not provide the "why" in your arguments. Saying that more armed citizens prevents gun violence is a falsehood. Look at Canada and England. --- So voters do not look to PoeJoe's logical non-sequiturs, but look to the empirical evidence that I have provided.

positive: Should guns laws be implemented Should guns laws be implemented and the second amendment abolished to prevent mass shootings. I personally feel as if we are safer with the right to bear arms. It is fairly rare for mass shootings to be committed by legally obtained weapons.

positive: Gun Control Rebuttals & New PointsI will admit that my equation was inaccurate in a sense. I will agree with you that there can be too many regulations. However, I will not deny that there must be some regulations put in place in order to ensure violent individuals do not obtain a gun and that the future crime can be prevented. The court cases you have listed - especially Heller v. District of Columbia - support my point: the second amendment must not be misinterpreted. That is what I have said in the previous round. It seems we agree on some issues, while we disagree on others. I will admit that there are some negative influences when you increase gun control, but there are also many benefits that one cannot simply ignore:"There is no question, of course, that guns figure in countless murders, suicides and accidental deaths. Over the five years ending in 1997, the Justice Department says, there was an average of 36,000 firearms-related deaths a year. (Fifty-one percent were suicides, and 44 percent homicides.) Determining whether particular gun control laws would have, on balance, prevented some of those deaths is difficult." [1] There are three possibilities: 1. Gun Control laws decrease the crime rate.2. Gun Control laws increase the crime rate.3. Gun Control laws have nearly no effect whatsoever on the crime rate.I will support possibilitiy one and three. The crime rate will be influenced by gun control, whether it be a major influence or a minor influence. However, one cannot deny that there will be some influence. Some of the sources I will list will support me, some will support you, and some will support both of us. I do believe, however, that the sources I will list will strengthen my stance. "However, the acts of violence themselves and gun control show that there may be a correlation between the availability of guns and crime. What the relationship is still undetermined for such contradictory data exists that can trump and repel arguments given by both sides of the gun control debate, pro gun control and against gun control." [2] You cannot deny that there will be a relationship between gun control laws and the crime rate. I will admit that some states have gun control laws that are too strict and that some states have too weak gun control laws. However, let's put party aside and work together for the betterment of the American society. We can begin by expanding a few aspects of gun control. You cannot deny that we need background checks, limited ammunition, and a regulation of gun production. We will need to improve security measures in order to ensure that schools, malls, movie theatres, and other public places are safe from violence. Both gun control and security measures will ensure that crime is DECREASED. The crime rate as a whole may stay about the same, but I assure you, there will be a positive influence once sophisticated gun control is enacted. I recognize that this debate is about gun control specifically, but I would like to point out some other ways to reduce crime: We need to reform our education system, increase spending in security, reform the tax code, and assist the people that are troubled, depressed, and maybe mentally ill. These measures, alongside gun control, will ensure that crime is decreased. I do not believe that the points you have are sufficient enough to support your claim. You will need to find new evidence. Sources[1] http://www.nytimes.com...[2] http://gun.laws.com...

positive: There should more gun laws enacted in the U.S ! There should be more gun laws enacted in the U.S! Armed civilians are unlikely to stop crimes and are more likely to make dangerous situations, including mass shootings, more deadly. The average gun owner, no matter how responsible, is not trained in law enforcement or on how to handle life-threatening situations, so in most cases, if a threat occurs, increasing the number of guns only creates a more volatile and dangerous situation. According to the Los Angeles times, author Patt Morrison states in his article that was posted on August 2, 2017 that Americans who carry "heat" increase the rate of violent crime. After reviewing these articles and doing research it is clear to me that armed civilians are more likely to cause dangerous situations rather than protecting theirselves or others. 1.) Jeffrey Voccola, "Why I Don't Want Guns in My Classroom," www.chronicle.com, Oct. 14, 2014 2.) Does carrying a gun make you safer? No. In fact, right-to-carry laws ... http://www.latimes.com...

positive: Gun Control COUNTER-REBUTTALS (Number corresponds to Op's Rebuts in num order) 1) People do have the right to protect themselves, I will concede this point. That right ends where another person's rights begin, however. Constitutional rights have limits on them; the classic example being that I cannot yell fire in a crowded theatre if there isn't one, because it may cause a panic and get people hurt. The same is true in regards to the right to bear arms. If certain firearms serve no purpose other than to cause harm, or provide unnecessary firepower, then it is a sound and logical choice to ban them since they have the potential to cause great malice without serving a practical and benign need to the everyday citizen. Your rights end here, because it is a danger to the public health to have such weapons at large in society. You also alluded to home defense, and I will address this. The presence of a weapon in the home, instead of increasing home safety, actually leads to a higher chance of someone in your home being the victim of gun violence; whether it be from domestic violence, a curious yet unfortunate child, or the escalation of force a criminal might use if you pull a gun on him. Again, this is why weapons handling and the bearing of arms is best left to the professionals in law enforcement agencies and the military. [1] 2) I do not doubt the US constitution on this issue, I only doubt the interpretation that certain elements of society make of the second amendment. If we were to interpret the second amendment in the most literal sense, we as citizens would be allowed to own and operate any piece of military equipment we could afford. Recoilless rifles, grenades, heavy machine-guns, mortars, etc. The list of destructive weapons that would be allowed to enter society goes on, but it's a moot point because fortunately we're smart enough as a society to not take the wording in the constitution literally. We recognize that there are some legitimate circumstances where private citizens have the right to own firearms. Now in regards to the second part of your statement, I would like to reiterate that my position in this debate is that I want more gun control, not that I want to ban firearms outright. So we must establish that gun control does not equal gun prohibition, and that I am not arguing for gun prohibition. The three categories I listed are legitimate purposes for firearms ownership, and I will explain why. -Personal Defense: Firstly I'd like to point out that not everyone should be entitled to own a handgun for self-defense. In most situations ownership of a handgun will actually bring more harm than good to your household, however, there are certain situations where handgun ownership for the purpose of self-defense is practical and has sound reasoning. One example that comes to mind is a shop owner, who must personally carry over $10,000 in cash from his safe to the bank once a month. This man should be allowed to carry a handgun while he performs this task, because he is putting himself at a great risk when he carries so much money on his person. [1] -Hunting: Hunters often play a vital part in keeping the population of certain species of animals at an acceptable level. Thus hunters should be able to continue playing their part in conservationism. Furthermore, hunting firearms are designed for hunting animals and not killing people, therefore the rate of fire on these weapons are slower than military grade weapons and the bulky size of many of these rifles make them impractical for close quarters fighting. [4] -Showmanship Shooting and Other Sports: The weapons used in showmanship shooting are very similar to hunting firearms, and to the people that participate in these sports, this is their livelihood. Since these weapons pose little danger to the public health, and the trade is a livelihood to many showmanship shooters, this is a legitimate reason to own a firearm. 4) Even those with a rudimentary knowledge of firearms know that there is a huge difference between an assault rifle and a handgun. The 9mm rounds used in handguns are not capable of piercing the protective body armor that police officers wear, and handguns are not capable of sustaining the same rate of fire as an assault rifle, nor do they have as many rounds per magazine. Assault rifles are weapons designed specifically for combat, the ammunition is designed specifically to destroy vital organs and end life. Handguns are designed as personal defense weapons, and can be concealed on an everyday person for purposes of self-protection in cases where it is warranted. To say that a handgun has the same potential of causing human death as an assault rifle is absurd. Furthermore, I will reiterate once again that the centerpiece of my argument is that we need more gun control and not gun prohibition. 5) We can easily do this, because it follows simple market principal. If you lower the supply and accessibility of illegal firearms, then the demand for them goes up and they eventually become unaffordable to criminals. As I stated in my opening arguments, it is painfully easy to obtain illegal firearms. Criminals can simply go to gun shows and exploit a law, which allows gun shows to sell weapons without licenses or background checks. Barring that they can purchase weapons directly from people with federal firearm licenses illegally. By simply changing the law and regulating gun shows and strengthening the ATF so they can inspect federal firearm license holders more efficiently, we can drastically reduce the supply of illegal firearms. [2][3] REBUTTALS 1)Rights As I stated in the counter-rebuttals, your rights end where another person's begins. The only reason gun control legislation can pass is because the courts and the constitution recognize this crucial fact. If we give you the ability to easily obtain an assault rifle to defend your home with, we're also providing that same easy access to the people that are willing to turn around and sell these guns to criminals for a profit. Not controlling the proliferation of dangerous weapons into public is a danger to the public, because these weapons will be used by criminals to commit crimes. If these dangerous weapons provided some benign use to the public, then it would be a risk worth taking, but they are not and so it is only logical to prohibit their sale. 2)Responsibility It is good to see that my opponent agrees that gun control is a necessity to keep firearms out of the hands of the criminal element of our society. Unfortunately he seems to consider knives and rocks to be as deadly a weapon as firearms. Crime will never cease, there will always be crime. It is crime that involves gun violence that is the main issue here, for that is what we seek to curtail by enacting further gun control legislation. 3)Freedom My opponent suggests that regulating firearms will lead us down the path to communism. This is absurd. The constitution does not give you the right to endanger the lives of others, and that's what we'd be doing if we had no gun control. Imagine a nation where the Bloods and the Crips do drive-by shootings with .50 caliber machine guns mounted on their Cadillacs. This is the America without gun control, and the America my opponent seems to want. Oh wait, it's okay because we can just give even bigger guns to private citizens and let them shoot it out. Then we'll have to give the police even bigger weapons I suppose, perhaps we'll just settle for replacing their police cruisers with tanks. Nothing could possibly go wrong with this idea. [1] http://aje.oxfordjournals.org... [2] http://gunvictimsaction.org... [3]http://www.nytimes.com... [4] http://www.huntinginvirginia.net...

negative: Gun Control Should the US government tighten gun laws. Why and how for both answers

negative: Gun Control Laws Should Be Abolished Gun Control Laws Should Be Abolished

negative: Gun Control people keep guns for their own protection; sometimes only to scare potential attackers/intruders rather than to use guns as weapons

negative: Gun Control Because of the awkward structure, I'll waive this round. (Sorry I didn't specify that I'd do this last round.) It's only fair to do so. Thank you for the debate. It was a very fun one to write and research.

negative: Gun Control Sorry, this is my first debate. I was unsure how many characters I would need. Attached is my own google doc. https://docs.google.com...

negative: DC handgun ban Gun bans only disarm citizens that are not inclined to commit crimes

negative: Gun Control Yea you'll want to put "Gun Ban" as the topic with you as con or something along those lines. There are tons of people out there who unironically say no gun control should exist while also saying mentally disturbed individuals are doing all the school shootings. I had assumed you were one of these. More or less you just have to concede and we'll end it quick. Just make a new post for gun bans if that's what you want to talk about. Alternatively, If you think ALL weaponry shouldn't be banned, I. E. Cannons, RPGs, Flamethrowers, Et cetera we can continue with that. There's a big question on where you draw the line with which guns the people should be allowed and which they should not. Are you wanting to defend people's rights to own grenade launchers/flamethrowers/tanks et cetera?

negative: We should ease up on Gun control laws and hunting regulations. You no what? I meant to make myself Pro instead of Con. My mistake! I agree wholeheartedly with you. Sorry.

negative: Gun Rigths Americans SHOULD have bans and restrictions on Guns.

negative: Death penalty: 100% Guilty I accept your challenge. 1st round acceptence 2nd round arguments 3rd round rebuttal

negative: Gun Control Laws Should Be Abolished every single person I debate forfeits quite stupid if I may say so. If anyone wants to actually have a debate with me send me a message. thanks.

negative: The Second Amendment Is Still Important And Should Not Be Repealed First: I am fine with how gun control is now, we can debate whether or not gun control should be increased or decreased. Second: I believe the 2nd Amendment is there to protect the American population from a tyrannical government. Now that this is out of the way: I say that there is a need in society today to defend yourself from intruders and a tyrannical American Government. I also believe that the battle over gun control is actually gun owners vs non-gun owners. The informed vs. the ill-informed. Let us keep the debate friendly. What I believe I think is the best for society, as will my opponent.

negative: Gun control laws I am disappointed that my opponent forfeited the previous round - I hope this reflects how much he feels about his arguments. May the best debator win, may the voting begin.

negative: Gun Control Laws Our rights to bear arms are written in the constitution. Whoever wants to challenge me go ahead and write your first argument.

negative: Gun Control Background checks and mental health evaluations should be given to potential to gun owners before the purchase firearms. There should also be mandatory laws for the ways in which guns should be stored, so that these weapons will not fall into the wrong hands. Not only this, but background checks and mental health evaluations should be given on a yearly basis. This should be the only form of gun control in the United States, that way guns will not be obtained by people with malicious intent.

negative: Stricter Gun Control in America First debate here :) Anyways, I think stricter gun control laws should not be supported. Against popular belief, guns are much more useful than what people think. Reasons, I will state later. Thanks!

negative: Gun Control Rebuttal One: Con has made a wrong choice for bring up the so called "banning of weapons" in the People's Republic of China during Mao Tse-tung time as the Chairman of the Communist Party of China. http://www.youtube.com... Rebuttal Two: Less regulation is better? Does that even sound right? Allowing it to be easier to get a gun would allow criminals to gain the gun faster.

negative: #MandatoryCarry or #RepealTheSecondAmendment Rebuttals: Your rebuttal of my chart showing the gun violence is not adequate enough. Louisiana, no matter what you say, has the worst gun control and has the MOST deaths of all the southern states. And California, a state with a lot of gun control, has one of the least gun related deaths in America. This shows also disproves your statement that more people would die because criminals would get guns because the facts show other wise. Guns in the household also increase the likely hood of suicide. "Using survey data on rates of household gun ownership, we examined the association between gun availability and suicide across states, 1999-2001. States with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm suicide and overall suicide. This relationship held for both genders and all age groups. It remained true after accounting for poverty, urbanization and unemployment." http://www.hsph.harvard.edu... Enacting common sense gun control would decrease the homicide rate by firearms Currently out of the 12796 murders in the US 88555 of them were gun related. If you take away the guns most criminals wont go for a gun like I pointed out above (over 62 percent wouldn't get a gun illegally) or they will use a knife which cant effectively murder people or MASS amount of people like guns can Also I don't understand your question? I didn't "utterly fail to address the question". Guns are RARELY used in self defense according the charts I have. Only about 1000 gun incidents are defense. The VAST majority are homicides, accidents and suicides ALL decreasing if you enact common sense gun control In the end I have an argument and you don't. I don't have an extremist position but you do. I didn't say remove ALL guns. I said enact a law that restricts guns from criminals and the mentally ill, however it would still be available to citizens who could pass the background check. You believe there should be no gun control and let countless more die. Vote CON!!! Sources: http://static1.businessinsider.com... http://www.hsph.harvard.edu... http://www.infoplease.com...

negative: Gun control is a stupid idea I'll keep it short and sweet. 7 of your 8 sources were from a website with the name "gunpolicy." I can provide just as many sources using a website named "gunfreedom" except you wouldn't expect that website to produce unbiased statistics. The truth is that gun control statistics vary wildly depending on the source and how the information is displayed given the context of the information. Gun control statistics have been debated wildly with conflicting results from each side. Laws are restrictions and could serve as subtle removal of freedoms. Over the course of Nazi Germany the Nazi's leveraged existing gun control laws to round up the Jews and other minorities that they despised without a threat The constitution allows Americans the right to bear arms as a personal right because the founding fathers recognized the threat of tyranny and the need for self-defense. The threat of tyranny still exists in our modern world today and is a very valid reason for having the rights to own and use a gun. "So, here's my question: how is the right to bear arms affected by gun control? People are still allowed to bear arms, but not any kind. I mean, my opponent most certainly does not include nuclear arms in the "right to bear arms"? So, why the fixation on firearms?" When the founding fathers wrote the constitution no nuclear arms existed and it's common sense to recognize firearms or any other kind of weaponry for that matter is within your right to have. Gun control commits the fallacy of assuming that guns in circulation will be eliminated once gun control laws are enacted. They won't. They'll be in the hands of criminals who disobey the law and out of the hands of the vast majority of responsible gun owners. Consider this: imagine you're a druggie and need money. The town you live in allow guns but the town right next to you doesn't. Would you rather rob a store in your hometown or go right next door the the one that poses a much lesser threat and more successful chance of getting away with robbery? Police can't be there the moment you are confronted with somebody posing a threat to your life. Guns are self-defense for the vast majority of responsible gun owners, protection from the threat of tyranny, and common sense to acknowledge guns won't be removed from circulation once gun control laws are enacted.

negative: USA should adapt Australian Gun Laws It"s simple: Australia enacted strict gun control in 1996 and since then, there has been either zero or one mass shooting (depending on what you consider a mass shooting). America let"s every citizen carry a gun and it has resulted on an average of one mass shooting every ten days in 2018. If America issued the same buyback scheme and gun laws John Howard enacted, the mass shooting count would drop significantly, if not completely.

negative: Gun Control (Copy #2) My opponent has used his acceptance round to state his arguments. Based on this I will begin my rebuttals in Round One, and post my main arguments afterwards. R1 "The current gun control laws in the United States should not be increased and if anything should be abolished. Guns do not cause violence, deranged individuals do." It is true that guns do not cause violence, they are simply the middlemen, so to speak. And it is also true that deranged individuals are often behind gun violence. These two statements are true, but that does not mean there shouldn't be gun control laws in America, as my opponent suggests in the first sentence of the quote above. If deranged individuals do cause gun violence, then there should be laws in place to control and hopefully prohibit said deranged individuals' access to guns. Gun control laws are already minimal in America compared to those in countries like Australia[1] or Japan[2], and to further lessen our laws and regulations is an invitation to an even greater ease of access for deranged individuals. R2 "Statistics show that in areas with increased gun control there are more gun related crimes. Gun control only helps the criminal." This statement can be considered unreliable. One thing to note is that my opponent never cited a source with this information, and therefore cannot prove statistics do actually show this. More importantly, there can be many factors not taken into account when measuring such statistics. For instance, what if an area is experiencing a significant amount of gun violence, and decides to give stricter gun control laws a shot. The following year after this decision may not see much change, simply because the new laws take a while to have full effect, but people taking the statistics take a quick look at the area and say, "Yep, they've still got gun violence." R3 "The original purpose of the 2nd amendment was to be the last line of defense against tyranny, armed civilians are essential to protecting liberty." I'd like to stress the use of the word 'original'. The Constitution was crafted at a time very different than ours, when militias were relied upon to help fight in the revolution. The United States was a baby nation at the time of the writing of the Constitution, and the forces of law and order were few and far between, and so it was necessary for people to join into militias to provide protection. America is no longer at that stage however. We have a tangible police force to protect us now. A well regulated militia is no longer necessary to the security of a free state. A complete ban on guns is not required, but completely free access to guns is no longer needed. R4 "government does not have the right to tell an individual what they can or cannot have as long as they do not hurt another person or violate another persons civil liberties. Owning a firearm of any kind is a human right as firearms in the modern world are necessary for self defense from enemies." It seems my opponent's contention here is aimed at a ban on weaponry. I am not for a complete ban on weaponry in the US, so I cannot rebuttal this in its entirety. However I will comment on the idea that firearms are necessary in the modern world to protect oneself from enemies. Statistics show that legally owned guns are rarely used to stop criminals. In fact, legally owned guns are found to be used in socially undesirable ways, such as threatening spouses and children, illegal usage under purported claims of self-defense, and claims of gun self-defense are grossly exaggerated[3]. Legally owned guns are an instrument in all of those things more frequently than they are an instrument in self-defense. This is contradictory to my opponent's idea that guns are necessary for safety. Main Argument: Point 1 I do not argue for a complete ban on weapons in the United States. I argue for smarter and stricter laws regarding gun ownership, especially in gun acquisition. Currently 20% of gun sales are private[4], without background checks taking place. This is a huge loophole for potential deranged individuals. Point 2 We have seen many countries enact very tough gun laws, and been the better for it. My two biggest examples are that of Australia[1], and Japan[2]. Japan has virtually no civilian owned guns. The only weapons that are legal to purchase are shotguns and air rifles, and these are extremely hard to come by, due to the complicated gun acquisition process in place. Japan has had as few as 2 gun deaths a year. Compare that to the US's 12,000 firearm related homicides in the year 2008[2]. Or take Australia, which has seen significant reduction in gun related homicide since the NFA was enacted[5]. It is impossible to look at scenarios like this and claim it's due to chance, and that the same could not happen in America if stricter gun laws were introduced. Sources: [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://www.theatlantic.com... [3] http://www.hsph.harvard.edu... [4] http://www.cnn.com... [5] http://guncontrol.org.au...

negative: Gun control Thank you for debating firstly. Secondly, background checks have nothing to do with gun control. Licensing does. That's what gun control is. Making it incredibly difficult to attain a gun. Background checks are easy. What I am against is the extraction of any type of gun from the public. As you can see by statistics, it does not have any effect on the gun violence, violent crime, and homicide rates. Let me provide that for you. UK: The UK enacted its handgun ban in 1996. From 1990 until the ban was enacted, the homicide rate fluctuated between 10.9 and 13 homicides per million. After the ban was enacted, homicides trended up until they reached a peak of 18.0 in 2003. Since 2003, which incidentally was about the time the British government flooded the country with 20,000 more cops, the homicide rate has fallen to 11.1 in 2010. In other words, the 15-year experiment in a handgun ban has achieved absolutely nothing. Scotland is basically the same stat except after the gun ban the crime shot up exponentially and has stayed. To give you some more country's, Mexico, Cuba, Japan, England, France, Scotland, and Ireland are all great examples in which gun control has not worked or has not affected anything, at all. Now let me give you examples within the U.S. First of all, California has many of the most restrictive gun laws in the country, yet those laws did absolutely nothing to stop the San Bernardino shooting. It is also recorded in Chicago, that a person is shot every 2.8 hours despite the intense gun restriction. As well as Washington D.C., which has a similar stat.

negative: The US Should Have Better Gun Control I find it a little bit ironic that using a picture that has a list of facts on it from a credible website is not credible according to my opponent, while using Wikipedia is. But here are some more websites that back what I say (1) (2) (3). My opponent claims that if there are more gun control laws that people will be safer, but is that true. The top ten cities in the United with the strictest gun control laws are: Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas, Cleveland, Oakland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Newark,and Atlanta; and out of these cities 6 have the most gun violence ( New York, Los Angeles, Oakland, Philadelphia, Newark, Detroit). So gun control in America doesn't work there is an estimate of about 270 million guns in the United States and if gun control is enacted where do these guns go. Well they would go to the criminals who would have black market deals. Compare guns to marijuana, marijuana is illegal to own by federal law, but marijuana is still one of the Untied States largest cash crops (http://abcnews.go.com...) this shows that when someone wants something they can get if even if it is illegal like guns. Look at the logistics of enacting gun control, Australia destroyed 640,381 guns after they made guns illegal it cost the tax payers 500 million dollars now imagine the cost of finding and destroying 270 million guns and we are nearing almost 17 trillion dollars worth of debt, the United States can't afford gun control. While the gun murder rate in Australia is low it doesn't mean they are safe since the 1997 ban on guns accidental gun deaths are up 300%, the assault rate is up 200%, and immediately following the 1997 gun ban overall robbery went up 200% from 1997-2002 and has increased since than 20%. crime Australia is not safe from guns just because they made them illegal (2). Compare that to the United States who has had less crime since 1993. While any death is tragic aren't we going a little over board with it. In the US 3 people die out of 100,000 from guns that means 99,997 don't die from guns. Don't give up liberties for security like Thomas Jefferson said "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety,deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." While the 2nd amendment can be amended the debate topic is not about amending the 2nd amendment. It is about gun control and he should have changed the topic. Pencils are a tool like guns if used right they are great if used wrongly they are not great. Gun control is not about guns it is about the government controlling you and me. Sources (1)http://dailycaller.com... (2) http://freerepublic.com... (3) http://www.justfacts.com...

negative: Choose a Gun Resolution Debate For this round, I will eplain why banning guns would not be the best idea for society. To begin with, I accept my opponent's definition of a violent crime. Armed robbery should also count in this sphere; however, I'm willing to drop unarmed robbery. Most of my argument is going to revolve around how guns bans do not decrease violent crime and how, in some cases, those same gun laws can actually increase the rate of violent crime. Most studies have been able to demonstrate gun control has either no effect on crime or actually increases the crime rate. The findings of many studies, notably one published in the CATO journal report gun control is "The findings of this study that gun control is ineffective in reducing crime rates are consistent with the vast majority of other studies that use state data. "[1]In fact, this data can be compared with other countries: "Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those that do not. The study found that the nine European nations with the lowest rates of gun ownership (5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000 population) have a combined murder rate three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership (at least 15,000 guns per 100,000 population). "[2]Looking directly at countries who have banned, or placed heavy restrictions on the sale or use of guns: Australia: Since Australia's 1996 laws banning most guns and making it a crime to use a gun defensively, armed robberies rose by 51%, unarmed robberies by 37%, assaults by 24% and kidnappings by 43%. While murders fell by 3%, manslaughter rose by 16%. [3] Canada: Canada enacted many gun control laws from 1991 to 1995 while the US has greatly eased restrictions on guns in the same time period: Over the past decade, the rate of violent crime in Canada has increased while in the United States the violent crime rate has plummeted. [4] England: According to the BBC News, handgun crime in the United Kingdom rose by 40% in the two years after it passed its draconian gun ban in 1997. [5][6] Europe: For example, Norway has the highest rate of gun ownership in Western Europe, yet possesses the lowest murder rate. In contrast, Holland's murder rate is nearly the worst, despite having the lowest gun ownership rate in Western Europe. [2] Looking at more domestic sources of data: In Chicago, handgun crime increased (but depending on the data I use, the data either claims an increase in crime or a slight decrease. But all of the data agreed initial after the law crime increased). In Washington DC, the homicide rate was 73% higher after their gun ban. In all of the conceal carry states listed, crime decreased. [7] In fact, "Prior to enactment of the law [mandatory gun ownership for heads of household], Kennesaw had a population of just 5,242 but a crime rate significantly higher (4,332 per 100,000) than the national average (3,899 per 100,000). The latest statistics available – for the year 2005 – show the rate at 2,027 per 100,000. Meanwhile, the population has skyrocketed to 28,189. "[8]In general, statistics of countries who ban or place heavy restrictions on guns do not paint a rosy picture of a crime-free lifestyle; in fact, when looking at individual data, not only does crime never decrease in any country after the enactment of a gun law because of said law, but many times, crime rates actually increase. These two graphs paint the real picture very accurately:For Ireland: [9]For Jamaica: [9]Or when comparing the drastic crime drop in the 1990s, this is what happens when a low-gun country [England] compares to a high-gun country [The United States] in crime drops. The picture tells it all: [9]When looking at more domestic sources, take the gun laws of the 1960s. No crime drop: [10]Finally, my opponent tries to make a claim on gun ownership verses gun crimes and tries to show a direct correlation between the two. However, this explains: "The important thing to keep in mind is not the rate of deaths by gun - a statistic that anti-gun advocates are quick to recite - but the overall murder rate, regardless of means. The criminologists explain: [P]er capita murder overall is only half as frequent in the United States as in several other nations where gun murder is rarer, but murder by strangling, stabbing, or beating is much more frequent. (p. 663 - emphases in original)"[2]To conclude this point: Belarus - guns banned - murder rate 10.40 Poland - guns allowed - murder rate 1.98 Russia - guns banned - murder rate 20.54[11] And this comes all from post-Soviet Union countries where crime rates would be expected to be the same. Or not. Why? Becuase of gun bans. On constitutionality, I am assuming that the location of this law would be the United States of America, and thus dependent on its constitution. However, my opponent claims I cannot use US Constitutionality as a point if I am going to use foreign countries's data in my crime point. Unfortunately for him, this cannot be used to make me drop the constitutionality point. I was simply using other countries's data to back up my claim that more guns means less crime and that less guns means more crime. Foreign countries's data is still relevant to this debate for that reason. I'll explain this point further if necessary. Finally, my opponent concludes that the resolution never allowed regular crime (non-violent crime) to be mentioned as an argument. However, the resolution of your choice was, "Guns should be legal". This means that any argument that affirms that resolution is relevant. My first argument was on crime altogether, not just violent crime; although, it is doubtful that gun laws would effect non-gun related crimes (i. e. non-violent, unarmed burgularies where a gun is not a target). I hope I cleared up some of your confusion and thanks for taking the time to address them. Sources:[1]: Moorhouse, John C. , and Brent Wanner. “Does Gun Control Reduce Crime or Does Crime Increase Gun Control? ” Cato Journal(2006). [2]: . http://theacru.org...[3]: Lott, John R. Jr. "Gun laws don't reduce crime. " USA Today (May 9, 2002). [4]: . http://www.fraserinstitute.org...[5]: . http://news.bbc.co.uk...[6]: . http://gunowners.org...[7]: . http://www.justfacts.com...[8]: . http://www.wnd.com...[9]: Beltowski, Lech. "How Governments Create Crime: An Overview of Crime Control, Gun Control, People Control and the Loss of Right to Self-Defense". [10]: U. S. Department of Justice - Office of Justice Programs - Bureau of Justice Statistics - Crime - State Level - State-by-State and National Trends[11]: Kates, Don B. and Gary A. Mauser. "Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International Evidence" Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (May 2006).

negative: Our gun rights Legislation enacted at a federal level tend to be the ones that are the most fought against simply because when this country was founded it was decided that the states would be separate sovereigns with their own state constitution, state laws, state governments, and state courts. In other words, this method was used to grant more freedom to the people instead of imposing federal laws that were essentially passed with little to no input from the citizens. The federal government was created to protect the peoples constitutional rights but was granted more and more power over time becoming what is known as "Big government" By enacting federal laws it strips people of the choice to live in a place where the law best fits their own beliefs. For example: People in a Texas have a drastically different opinion on guns from those in Massachusetts. It varies from state to state but the point is that people are obviously very divided on this issue and when there are such drastic differences in views held by so many people it should be left up to the people in each state to make the choice not being told by the federal government. This country was established to give the power to the people, let the people decide and its happening that way less and less these days. Statistics can be argued from almost every standpoint depending primarily on who funded the research. People generally tend to disapprove of any government funded research when seeking information on an issue. As a country we need to stop allowing the federal government to chip away from our state rights and respect the constitution enacted by the founding fathers. Had gun control measures taken in other countries been effective as they were told they would be, there would not be mass protest by the people. Regardless of an individuals feelings about guns we can all agree that everyone has an innate right to protect themselves from those that mean to do them harm. If we allow legislation that would restrict our access to firearms how are we expected to protect ourselves from a criminal with a knife trying to rob us or even kidnap us? This simple question has been dodged by almost every anti-gun person asked. They understandably dont want to fear that they may by shot but they are allowing their fear to over take their logic. Criminals are going to commit crimes regardless of any law put into place. This may sound like an extreme circumstance but for many people this is a reality. If you were being attacked by someone wielding a knife which would you prefer to protect yourself with? A gun, or a knife?

negative: Guns should not be banned 1. The good guys are the VAST majority of gun owners who stop 800k to 2 million violent crimes each year. 2. No, Gun free-zones make up 96% of mass-shootings and women get raped in gun-free zones. 3. No, Mass killings can be committed with a SPOON. 4. Back it up with evidence 5. Untrue, Cars are more dangerous than guns 6. Where do you get that and you are safer with a gun or next to someone with a gun than you are in a car. #1 again 7. Very unlikely, And doesn't happen. 8. No, It saves lives. Look at the mass shooting at a college in the US where a Good guy stopped a bad guy, Or how mass shootings that have low death tolls compared to others are stopped with good guy cops stopping the bad guy. 9. Criminals find a way. Lithuania has one of the world's lowest gun ownership rates (0. 7 guns per 100 people) but its suicide rate (by any method) was 45. 06 per 100, 000 people in 1999, The highest suicide rate among 71 countries with available information. Japan has a low gun ownership rate at 0. 6 guns per 100 people and a high suicide rate of 18. 41 suicides per 100, 000 people in 1997. Mexico has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world and yet, In 2012, Mexico had 11, 309 gun murders (9. 97 gun homicides per 100, 000 people) compared to the United States that had 9, 146 gun homicides (2. 97 per 100, 000 people). Gun control laws are racist. Current gun control laws are frequently aimed at inner city, Poor, Black communities who are perceived as more dangerous than white gun owners. In the late 1960s, Gun control laws were enacted in reaction to the militant, Gun-carrying Black Panthers. The KKK began as a gun-control organization. Before the Civil War, Blacks were never allowed to own guns. In 1831, A law was passed that prohibited free black people "to keep or carry any firelock of any kind, Any military weapon, Or any powder or lead and all laws allowing free black people to possess firearms were repealed.

negative: Cities that have gun ban laws enacted are not significantly safer The examples of Washington DC and New York show that with a gun ban law they are one of the most dangerous cities within the US. This leads to the conclusion that reality should have reinforced the reasoning that gunning bans provides more safety to the public. Absent of this confirmation one can argue that banning guns is not an effective way of ensuring public safety."

negative: gun control Giving me a lot to think about. And write! But before I do my rebuttals I will present one more point because of being slightly nudged/helped from a comment. Argument 5: The facts "In 1982, the city of Chicago instituted a ban on handguns. This ban barred civilians from possessing handguns except for those registered with the city government prior to enactment of the law. The law also specified that such handguns had to be re-registered every two years or owners would forfeit their right to possess them. In 1994, the law was amended to require annual re-registration."- (1) Since the ban started in 1982, the murder rate in Chicago went down 17%, and the USA murder rate 30% down. Rebuttals: "the unemployment rate is already low enough do we also wanna take away the jobs of all those people who own or work in a gun shop" Ahem, we are talking about "gun control." Gun control means limiting or making more thorough checks for sales of gun. So when you state that instituting gun control will take away jobs of people, it wouldn't. People would still be able to sell guns. "In 1935 Germany established gun control and 13 million Jews unable to defend themselves were killed" We all know that in this example Germany was Nazi-Germany. They where completely mean, horrible, and other words that I will not state on this family-friendly website. Listen to this: "Jews were prohibited from possessing any dangerous weapons, including firearms. They were also forbidden from the manufacturing or dealing of firearms and ammunition." This is a bad example because it was completely unfair for the Jews. Gun control should be for EVERYONE except for the Military. Not just for the Jews, and this is barely gun control. This is banning guns. "The Columbine High School massacre was a school shooting which occurred on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, an unincorporated area of Jefferson County in the State of Colorado. This seems to be a good example against your "stress shootings" these students got there guns by illegally buying them from a man who illegally made them at his house." By the way, my "stress shootings" point was just to show how guns could POSSIBLY be used to kill. I never once said that ALL shootings where "stress shootings!". "Gun Control is right for America thank you." Uh, just to clarify things bud, you are against (con) Gun Control. So when you basically state that gun control is good, you just flopped the last round. I would like to say one thing (thank you opponent for writing these fine words for MY side of the debate): Gun Control is right for America, Thank you, Jacobie1121 Vote pro! References: (1) http://www.justfacts.com... Other references: http://www.buzzle.com... http://www.cnn.com... http://standupspeakoutnow.com...

negative: Gun Control in the United States I will provide a rebuttal and then present some alternate arguments. Pro changes their argument. In Round 1, my opponent states “strict gun control laws in the United States lead to less murders. ” Yet, now in Round 2 they say, “gun control is only a factor in reducing gun crimes. ” So which is it? The first quote is what I assumed Pro's position was. The second quote is MY position. If my opponent now wishes to advocate the latter, then we both agree and this debate is now pointless. Pro misquotes my argument. My opponent states at the end of Round 2 that my position is “we shouldn't have gun laws. ” This is not my position. I state very clearly in Round 1 that, “I am not opposed to regulating firearms . . . my goal is to show that merely making stricter gun laws does not by itself decrease gun violence. ” Once again, if this is what my opponent now believes, we should delete this debate because we are in agreement. Facts do not speak for themselves, they require interpretation. This is why, when Pro says in Round 2, “this website was about the facts, not the reasons,” they admit to not making an argument. The reasons are what we’re after here. For example, if I see a person running, that is a fact – someone is running. But this fact gives me no actual understanding as to why. Is he exercising? Is he running from the police? Did the tiger escape from the local zoo? I don’t know, I need to do further analysis. To make facts useful, you must analyze them. My opponent, by their own admission, does not do this. My opponent absurdly states “In Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, there are many gun laws. ” Do we really think only 3% of Palestinians have access to weapons? Do we really think gun laws are enforced and followed in Afghanistan? I’ve been to Afghanistan, and I can tell you the answer is no. Perhaps the reason “the amount of guns purchased is low” in these countries is because people don’t need to purchase them – they already have them, or they smuggle them in. And yet, according to my opponent’s own sources, the murder rate in Afghanistan is still supposedly lower than America’s. My opponent uses unreliable sources. I would not consider the Mack Family Blog (zeigen. com), Wikipedia, and a website that looks like a high school web design project (sunray22b. net) authorities on gun policy. There are lots of credible resources out there, I challenge Pro to use them. Now, on to some alternate arguments: More gun laws do not necessarily stop gun violence. According to the Cato Institute, the Columbine shooters broke around 20 different gun laws in order to amass the arsenal of weapons they eventually used (1). More laws didn’t stop them. Maybe we need to focus on better enforcement of existing laws rather than adding new ones. According to the National Research Council 2013 report on gun violence, suicide accounts for 61% of all deaths from firearm related violence in the U. S (2). Maybe we have more of a suicide than a homicide problem. Maybe we need to look into more effective mental health programs, rather than simply more gun laws. Furthermore, stricter gun laws do not apply to people who don’t follow the law anyway – criminals. Criminals are a major source of gun related crimes, and making more laws won’t stop them – they will just make law abiding citizens easier targets. Although an exact number is hard to pinpoint, it is estimated that between 500,000 and 3,000,000 crimes are prevented each year by law abiding citizens using legal firearms for defense (3). Maybe we have a criminal problem, and need to focus on cleaning up crime infested areas, rather than simply more gun laws. As I hope I’ve made clear, I am absolutely in favor of gun control. I think we need laws and they should be well enforced. I am combating what I thought my opponent’s position was – that we should enact more and stricter gun laws because it will decrease murder rates. I apologize if my opponent was looking to debate someone who thinks “we shouldn’t have gun laws,” but this is not my position. . http://www.cato.org... . http://www.nap.edu... . http://www.nap.edu...

negative: Gun control Okay, I will begin the second round with providing the reason why the 2nd amendment was enacted. Beginning with the Constitution and the primary reason as to why the 2nd amendment was enacted. 1) The second amendment was enacted as a right for all American citizens to protect themselves from future government leaders who could potentially oppress them by using military or government assets to control the American population. The Nazis did gun control to there citizens before taking control of all of Germany with minimal resistance. The founding fathers had common sense and enacted this basic right to own firearms to protect your safety from an unknown future of government leaders that could assume office and pose as a hazard to civil American Life. 2) Although government oppression is unrealistic for America as of right now, The 2nd amendment gives you the most fundamental and basic entitlement a human can possibly have. The right to competently and efficiently protect yourself and your loved ones with minimal resistance as to how you choose to do so. 3) I'll restate as I had stated before that intimidation on criminals (criminals rational fear of being killed by a firearm in the act of a crime) is the best deterrent to crime rationally. When firearms are granted to populations of individuals, With minimal restrictions as to how a person can use those firearms, Crime rates overall are lower as criminals fear of being killed becomes more and more rational. [1]https://www. Cato. Org/publications/commentary/challenging-dc-gun-ban 4) "If you do agree then my point is proven, And if you don't then you are openly supporting school shootings and the average 96 deaths from guns in the US EVERY DAY". If somebody disagrees with your belief system, That definitely does not mean that they support the negative outcome of there belief system. It simply means that they believe there belief justifies the end result. When it comes to gun control or bans, In America, Historically extensive gun regulations have resulted in there being more crime such as in Washington D. C. [1]. Statistics can and are often flawed to promote political gain for political parties. In other words, Even though statistics can be made to accommodate your beliefs, They are often manipulated and the end result is simply a false statistic or lie. Common sense should then replace false statistics. Common sense would tell you that if an individual is afraid to break into a house due to the reality of being killed, That individual is less likely to enter that house. [2]https://www. Google. Com/amp/s/www. Forbes. Com/sites/kalevleetaru/2017/02/02/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics-how-bad-statistics-are-feeding-fake-news/amp/ So overall the thought process that taking away guns and regulating guns saves lives though at first seems ideal and is well intentioned, The result is there being more violence and death in America. This means more than the average number of 96 people a day. Keep in mind that there are over 300 million people living America and that only 96 people being killed by guns a day is not an epidemic by any rational means. 5) "As for the women and children thing, There is no link that leads to the internal link that means more women and children will be harmed, And thus your point has no impact. " Okay, Again let's use common sense and point out that woman and children would be victims of violent crime as murder rates would increase. I would even dare to say that woman and children would be victized even more by criminals as criminals know it is easier to victimize unarmed woman and children than it is unarmed full grown men. Thus the result being violence on woman and children skyrocketing. 6) Now I will address a criminals ability to obtain firearms. A criminals ability will not be heavily impacted as guns are made more difficult to obtain. It may even become easier for criminals to obtain guns as gun dealers could become a very main stream illegal business if criminals or even law abiding citizens turn to illegal activity for being unable to purchase a gun at a store. Believe it or not there already are regulations for buying and maintaining gun ownership. Just like drugs trafficking, Even though drugs are illegal, People still get them. Not to mention that it's not easy to make drugs at home without there being reasonable suspicion from others. People already make guns out of everyday materials found in America, And even though it is illegal, It doesn't stop them. 7) For my final argument for round two, I am going to address some geographical and socioeconomic differences in countries and why just because a policy in one country works does not mean it will work in other countries. America has by far the highest gun ownership rate in the world. America also has the largest and most effective organized crime gangs in the world. Regulating or taking away certain guns from American citizens would open up a new business for organized crime groups further increasing gang violence as gangs compete for business, Resulting in even more death and violence. Even simple regulations such as "being unable to keep your own firearm loaded while on your own property" though innocent and we'll intentioned at first (yet highly controlling) could very possibly lead to people losing there firearm privileges and searching out illegal methods to obtain firearms for protection. Why should the government have a right to tell you how you can protect your own self or your loved ones. In conclusion, For the rationale stated above, I cannot endorse or support this idea that limiting law abiding citizens ability to obtain guns would save lives. Gun violence is by no means an epidemic in America, And taking away citizens rights to competently protect themselves isn't just counterproductive, It's unethical and wrong. [1]https://www. Cato. Org/publications/commentary/challenging-dc-gun-ban [2]https://www. Google. Com/amp/s/www. Forbes. Com/sites/kalevleetaru/2017/02/02/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics-how-bad-statistics-are-feeding-fake-news/amp/

negative: The United States Federal Government should increase Gun Control Rebuttal That the source is poor (it is – it’s a person’s blog) and the author known for basis (he is [1]) I am inclined to listen to my own advice, and not bicker about the statics. It is incumbent on me to provide a rebuttal, so I must give it due attrition. 1) The stats referenced only discuss criminal activity, not touching on any other problem associated with guns. Societal problems with guns run deeper than simple criminality. 2) The study cited attempts to connect more gun ownership with crime. As someone has come before me has done to the work to eviscerate the poor work of Lott, I will quote from Tim Lambert’s rebuttal. “Even if we decide that there were more guns and less crime it is wrong to conclude that ‘more guns caused less crime’. The mechanism for causation proposed by Lott is not consistent with the empirical evidence on how often criminals encounter armed permit holders. The observed changes in crime rates are consistent with past changes in crime rates caused by factors other than concealed weapons…” [1] “No matter how you interpret the phrase “more guns”, it remains true that there were not a significant number of “more guns”. This fact alone is sufficient to destroy Lott’s case” [1]. [1] http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au... Conclusion and summary. All the gun statists aside. All the bickering over validity of one data set or another. All the disagreements over interpretation of data. All of it can and should be ignored for the answer to the question of this debate. Congress, and in specific “the peoples house” has a responsibility. Written by our founding fathers “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” The congress enacts laws that the governed request. The limit to the laws they wright is the constitution. Provided there is will, and the proposed law fits within the constraints of the constitution, it is the responsibility of the legislative making body to reflect the will of the governed. State by state, support for additional gun control is supported, with few exceptions. It is subversive for our representatives to ignore our will. It is un-American. My thanks to my opponent for this debate is more than just opponent perfunctory. The passions run high on both sides of the debate. I acknowledge and respect his thoughtful debate.

negative: Gun Control is necessary for a stable society. Thank you, con for making this debate possible. I look forward to seeing the outcome of this debate. Let me start by disregarding how important gun control is for the creation of a stable society, we can all agree that a stable crime free environment, is imperative to a utopian model stable society. I understand that we need rules to prevent criminals from doing more criminal activity, however it is imperative that to the overall masses, there needs to be gun laws to prevent future crimes. Criminals are people who have already committed a crime, but this bracket removes the possibility of future criminals from the masses. It is important to notice this difference. Rules should apply to criminals, of course. However rules should apply to non-criminals to create difficulty for future criminals to use such a weapon as a medium to carry their evil deeds. Let me also highlight, the simplicity of people using guns to carry out their deeds. All it takes it to grab a weapon, a few rounds and with little to no planning, time and effort you have a dozen dead people in a mass shooting, as well as the cops chasing you down furiously. Now, I understand that if we do impose gun laws that criminals will find other ways to enact their violence, but this does come with it"s benefits, for example as I mentioned before, the simplicity of becoming a mass murderer with a gun. Other methods take a lot more time and effort than just picking up a firearm, and clicking the trigger. Bombs for instance, require hours, days or weeks of effort, and with this time, it gives people more time to notice their evil deeds and other suspicious activities. By making the criminals have to go to longer lengths, it makes the community able to pinpoint suspicious activities and to catch the criminal at hand. Regardless of how they conduct their methods, the amount that they do it is more concerning. By placing gun control, it removes the simplicity of merely picking up the firearm, holding the trigger, and having dozen bodies scattered in front of you.