Any gun other than pistols should not be sold to citizens.

Thanks for the debate, Pro. =Neg case=I. Ban PistolsPro makes no good responses here. His only arguments rely upon the idea that robbers would carry around easily visible long guns before committing crimes. This is untrue because, contrary to Pro's claims, criminals do not prefer handguns because they are cheaper. They aren't cheaper than many long guns (military surplus Mosin Nagants run at around $100 each, far less than the cost of an average pistol). Criminals prefer handguns because they are easy to carry and conceal. If gun control works, we would be heavily damaging the power criminals have by preventing them from obtaining their favored weapon. If it does not work, there's no reason to affirm the resolution anyway. Pro's position is just self evidently absurd. He wants to ban the weapons that are hardly ever used in crimes, even bolt action rifles and muskets, while wanting to permit the ones that are commonly used by criminals. He has literally no warrant for why people couldn't have long guns in their places of business for defense (they do in the status quo) if we ban handguns so his self defense advantge falls apart. Again, if you buy that gun control works vote Con because gun control advocates should use their political capital to push for a handgun ban, not a ban on long guns. If you don't buy that gun control works, the resolution is negated for obvious reasons. Pro attempts to salvage his concession on the hunting argument by arguing that people going out into the woods to shoot squirrels or deer somehow count as a professional group tantamount to the military and should not be viewed as civilians. I think this illustrates the mental gymnastics one would have to do to vote Pro at this point--Pro conceded that people should be sold long guns to hunt in some circumstances, so he loses the debate. It's as simple as that. Pro's only response is that civilians should run should an invasion occur. What he's failed to negate is that, historically, an armed popualce *deters* invasion. Disarming the citizenry has no benefit to the federal government. Pro's position is quite frankly ridiculous. He wants to ban guns that he admits have literally no negative utility, such as muskets, simply due to their barrel length. Hardly a basis for sound policy. II. Second amendment Pro totally dropped my legitimacy argument throughout the entire debate. This point vastly outweighs *everything* else in the debate by several orders of magnitude. Affirming the resolution would more or less destroy the federal government. Pro makes literally no response. You can stop reading and vote Con right here. Pro accuses me of being inconsistent but, as the negative, I don't have to be consistent. I just have to show that the resolution is false. My case shows that if gun control works you negate, and if it doesn't work you negate. My case is consistent in that it highlights the inherent absurdity of the resolution. Pro concedes that gun control doesn't work. Once again, you can stop reading and sign the ballot. His only argument is that long guns increase the potential threat of a person "exponentially", and yet, statistically, the vast majority of gun deaths occur due to handguns. Pro just has no ground here. Pro drops the point that democide is about 20x more common than homicide from fellow civilians. Even if you grant him limited homicide mitigation, the reduced risk of democide outweighs this. Pro characterizes the idea of an armed population deterring genocide as "naive". Kates and Polsby note[1]:"..not one of the principal genocides of the 20th century, and there have been dozens, has been inflicted on a population that was armed. Nor should this be altogether surprising. An armed population is simply more difficult to exterminate than one that is defenceless." It's simply logical that an armed population is going to be a tougher nut to crack for oppressive governments than an unarmed one. This is why the Nazi's did all in their power to disarm the populace. As Hitler noted[2]: "The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing."III. Guns and crime Pro tries to make excuses for his lack of empirical evidence by stating he is not American, but this is just a cop out. At the end of the day, his nationality has no effect on his affirmation of the resolution. Granting him any leniency here would be discrimination, you have to judge the debate based on who did better, not by giving one side a blank check to spout opinions without the backing of statistics or sources. Pro realizes he's lost the debate on the practical front so he attempts to shift the goal posts by now arguing for an ideal. He made no response to my critique of idealism that if we're arguing for an ideal society, there would be no crime. Don't let him get away with having the debate judged on an idealistic plane--the resolution is a matter of policy. Even if you buy that he can make idealistic arguments, since all of his points rely on practicality as well you can ignore this paradigm. Since he's conceded that gun control wouldn't work because the populace is "stubborn" you can vote Con. Pro says he wants a society where the more lethal weapons are harder to get. Since pistols are about seven times more lethal in terms of death toll than long guns you can negate the resolution under my first contention. Pro argues that my statistics are useless because they don't address long guns specifically, but this is just absurd. He's given no reason, no reason at all, to think that more handguns would lead to less crime but more long guns would not. I don't know what else to say here--this point certainly stands. More guns means less crime, so banning the weapon kinds that constitute the majority of civilian owned arms is a terrible idea. The resolution has been negated several times. =Aff case=False dichotomyPro tries to shift the goal posts again. As I noted in my last round, he heavily implied in round 4 that these types of guns could still be sold to civilians as long as they had some kind of liscensing. As it stands, the fact that Pro wants to ban guns that he admits have no negative utility just because he wants a "clear" law is beyond asinine. If there's no reason to ban something, we shouldn't ban it and we should negate the resolution for being too broad. Easier for criminals Pro's argument lays in shambles because criminals simply do not buy weapons from stores. At this point given that he's already conceded gun control doesn't work, he gains no advantage from this or any other contention. Pro makes some strange responses to my argument about the Koreans defending their stores with long guns, but at the end of the day all that matters is his response here: "and in this sole case Koreans have used the assault weapons in the only correct way that exists". Thus he concedes that assault weapons (let alone all long guns) have some practical application in civilian hands. Therefore I've won the debate. Easier to solveAt long last, we come to the final point of contention. Pro once again tries to frame the resolution as an ethical question when it is quite clearly a matter of policy. Neither the resolution nor Pro's opening round make any mention of ethics or ideals, but rather a statement of policy that long guns should not be sold to citizens. This is pretty much all Pro says to this point but remember, even if you buy that this debate should be one of ideals since we've both argued pragmatism you have to vote on that. The judge is, after all, bound to the arguments the debaters make in round. Vote Con. Sources:1. http://www.theguardian.com...2. http://www.stephenhalbrook.com...