The USA should abolish all firearms

Thank you very much for accepting the challenge primeministerJoshua812 and for making your opening remarks. I will attempt to weave in some of my direct response to your first arguments within my arguments in order to engage with you points and bring in some new content. Before I get into my arguments I would like to clarify my stance. I am for the banning of all guns from citizens unless they have a very good reason to own a gun (e. g. a farmer). Even then, they must face heavy background checks and mental health checks as well as being interviewed as to their motive for owning the firearm. However, I am not for the disarmament of the police. This is an individual choice for the government and parliaments of the USA. In many situations, police rightly need guns in order to keep the peace and protect people - this is fair reason for possession and I do not dispute that. However, in all other cases I am for the banning of such weapons. My first argument is really just a rebuttal to a commonly used pro-gun argument. I am therefore challenging the idea that, because the second amendment says: "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. " this means that gun possession is a right and therefore must never end. It is so important that the second amendment is put into context. There have been 8 amendments to the American Constitution. The second amendment was made on December 15th 1791 (226 years ago). This was 8 years before the American revolutionary war with Britain in which British and Loyalist troops invaded the US and were undoubtedly, to some extent, tyrannical. As we can see, there is a legitimate historical context to the 2nd Amendment. Therefore, the 2nd Amendment is not a fair reflection on the current context. Let's be clear, the last time the US mainland was invaded and occupied by "tyrannical" powers was during the war of 1812 (206 years ago). The USA has largest military expenditure in the world, countless numbers of very powerful, free and democratic allies, has its sovereignty upheld by the UN and is without doubt the most powerful and well-defended country in the entire world. The USA faces absolutely no serious existential threat that could lead to the end of the "free State". Therefore, in this way, guns are not needed. The USA is also one of the most democratically free country in the world. Its constitution has huge constraints on governmental power including 2 houses which are regularly elected and a supreme court. Furthermore, the USA has never had any government which has tried to greatly limit the freedoms of its citizens (even FDR was massively held back by the Senate and Supreme court). The USA has no threat of becoming a non-free state. Therefore, guns are not needed to protect the citizenry from tyrannical power. My second argument is simply that guns lead to more deaths and that this is therefore bad enough to limit the privileges of some Americans to carry guns. The United States has 88.8 guns per 100 people, or about 270,000,000 guns, which is the highest total and per capita number in the world. 22% of Americans own one or more guns (35% of men and 12% of women). There were 464,033 total gun deaths between 1999 and 2013: 270,237 suicides (58.2% of total deaths); 174,773 homicides (37.7%); and 9,983 unintentional deaths (2.2%). (1) Guns were the leading cause of death by homicide (66.6% of all homicides) and by suicide (52.2% of all suicides (1) wisqars. cdc. gov This is hardly a surprising correlation. Furthermore, there is a logical explanation which explains a reasonable causation hypothesis. Guns are extremely dangerous and there are very little restrictions on the type of guns that may be carried. Guns allow people to kill others at a much faster rate. That is why in the event of a mass shooting many more people die than in the event of a mass stabbing. Of course, ultimately people are the ones that actually kill others but we can't ban people. However, the reality is that guns allow people to kill many more people more quickly. Therefore, many more people die as a result of the right to bear arms. Now, as a matter of fact, things like blunt objects are used to kill people. So do things like knives; that's why in many european countries there are restrictions on buying dangerous objects. We clearly can't abolish things like blunt objects - one would have to abolish so many things that our lives would become very impractical. Cars too could be abolished but again cars are so important to our daily lives that banning them is too detrimental and unreasonable. However, guns are not needed by Americans. Furthermore, whereas cars and blunt tools both have practical purposes, the only purpose of a gun is to kill. Banning guns is not contradictory. It is workable and makes sense; unlike banning other necessary tools guns are not essential to our daily lives and thus can be abolished if they cause sufficient harm - which they do. The next argument I have is effectively challenging the idea that this monolithic "black market" is going to sweep in a take ever everything, making it worse. Of course there will be a black market in guns. However, since the government would make it so hard to obtain a gun overall average citizens will be unable to access a gun and therefore fewer guns will end up in the hands of unstable or irresponsible people. It is also true that some really serious criminals will still be able to obtain guns. However, the extent to which this happens is exaggerated. Most criminals in countries without guns are unable to get guns and thus have to resort to things like knives, which are unsurprisingly less deadly and end up killing fewer people - which is good. Very few criminals will have access to guns. In these few cases armed police can deal with these criminals. The idea that armed civilians will be able to fight off criminals and cause less damage is completely nonsensical. Considering most Americans are unable to use such weapons with accuracy and that you are more likely to kill a member of your own family than an armed criminal with a firearm, the idea that if people have guns they will mitigate human suffering, is completely untrue. Furthermore, even if there are cases in which a civilian with a gun may be able to defend themselves and their family against an a dangerous thug, I am still prepared to err on the side of gun control. This is because when weighing this up with the reality that when everyone can have a firearm many people die, it is clear that although sometimes it may work more people would die overall. In conclusion, the 2nd amendment is a contextual and outdated privilege which does not reflect the needs of the 21st century. Furthermore, firearm possession has an obvious link with gun related deaths and mass murder. Also abolishing the 2nd amendment is reasonable since firearms are unnecessary unlike essential tools like kitchen knives. Finally, the possibility of an admittedly minor black market is unfortunate but allowable since overall less people would have access to killing-machines and in genuine combat situations civilian self-defence is very risky and damaging and a properly funded police force with a tough justice system can do a much better job at dealing with violent gun-carrying gangs (which in most cases target other gangs and not ordinary civilians they have no connection to). In 2016, 64% of homicides were gun-related (according to the FBI homicide index). It's plain to see that banning guns from civilians, unless they have a very good reason for having a gun, will reduce this death toll. Maybe, one day, American kids could go to school feeling safe in the knowledge that school shootings were a thing of the past. However, with the NRA spending $3.2 million on lobbying in 2017 this seems, tragically, unlikely. Change America for the better.