Restricting the type of firearms available to civilians will reduce gun death

Rebuttal time! I'll be changing the structure a bit. Rifles Con's arguments on this end have all been mitigation. There's no offense here whatsoever for him, so as long as I'm winning even one point on rifles, I get some net benefit out of this position. Con starts by stating that the deaths caused by rifles in a given year would simply shift to being caused by something else. As long as I can prove that rifles are deadlier weapons than handguns to any extent, that means that number decreases. These people may still commit murder, but they'll have a less effective tool to do it, and thus likely fewer deaths. He spends some time responding to my [1], and I'll admit that he knows quite a bit here. However, he has only addressed part of the problem. Pistol grips: I'll grant this point. Barrel shrouds: Con doesn't deny that these shrouds allow a shooter to hold the gun for longer, and therefore shoot longer and more consistently. The fact that some people won't use it if it's hot has no bearing on whether or not that increased usage without stopping increases the death toll. Silencers: Already restricted, with good reason. Flash suppressors: Con essentially just denies the importance of stealth. That isn't sufficient to erase its plausible harms. The DC sniper was highly mobile, but it was his ability to avoid being spotted at any given site that prevented his early capture. This dramatically helped him in that regard, especially at night. It doesn't matter if they have no place in the home, they have a place in mass shootings! Con argues that other guns are just as capable of killing someone. I'd like to use his own argument here. He says that a person shooting a gun is likely to miss the majority of the time. He also says that gunshots aren't sure kills in the first place. That means that fewer shots fired in the span of a few seconds can be a big deal, since it allows someone to get away before the shooter can actually kill them. Con has not argued that pistols have as rapid of a firing rate as semi-automatic rifles, nor has he argued that pistols are more accurate. So let's do some math. If someone can fire 10 bullets from a rifle in a few seconds. That same person can fire 5 from a handgun in that same time. The target will get away in those few seconds. Some 20% of those bullets are going to hit. How many bullets will hit their intended target? 2 and 1, respectively. Increasing the number of bullets hitting the target increases the chance that the target will be killed. Ergo, outpacing matters. So when Con says that guns with slide fire stocks aren't fully automatic, he's really missing the point. The capacity " any capacity " to increase the rate of fire increases the danger of a given firearm. Whether it's this particular stock, a competition grade trigger, or bump firing, the capacity to dramatically increase the amount of bullets coming out of your gun in a short period of time is problematic, leading to a higher likelihood of death. The fact that some of these methods haven't been used commonly in mass shootings doesn't make them harmless, though some have. Gian Luici Ferri, for example, used an earlier incarnation of bump fire, called the Hellfire trigger, to go on a shooting rampage in San Francisco in 1993, killing 8 people.[1] Magazines: What Con is really arguing here is that the capacity of any adult to defend themselves against the assault of criminals should always outweigh the harms of those weapons being legally available. This is where we find a lot of disagreement. Con points out methods that would be legal under the restrictions that are the basis of this debate, and then says that only criminals will use them. Legal methods are available to everyone. I'm not imposing a restriction on taping or coupling magazines, and as such, both criminals and everyone else will have access. I would argue that this access dramatically reduces any possible harm Con has stated, even if they do exist, which I believe they don't. I've spent a good deal of time arguing that access goes down for criminals to these high capacity magazines, something Con has only countered with the black market arguments. I've already stated why this market is not going to be accessed by most criminals, who lack the networks and funds to access it safely. This has gone cold dropped. He argues that gangs have access, and since they have easy access to drugs, they could easily get these. First, not all gangs are created equal. Most are small and lack the kinds of access I mentioned. Second, this just showcases a problem with the enforcement of the law and not with the law itself. It is the job of law enforcement to deal with gangs and illegal gun trafficking, not that of the average U.S. citizen. Third, I never said I would reduce the impact of all crime. If the number of individual criminals with access to these magazines goes down, that's a benefit to my case. Fourth, the comparison to drugs is unwarranted. Guns are manufactured in bulk by large facilities designed for their safe, efficient production. These facilities will be dramatically reducing their output, and unlike with drugs, you can't just start up a small chemical laboratory in your garage to meet demand. The capacity to supply the criminal market with quality products will decrease as time goes on. Fifth, criminals being forced to steal their guns from law-abiding citizens will have to put themselves at high risk just to get to what they currently have legally. That's not to mention that criminals tend to prefer new guns for a reason " "They get rid of ones that can be traced to a crime and, like anyone who works with a tool, they often prefer the best and latest models. Over time, a ban that dries up the supply of new weapons pushes shooters to more readily available options."[2] So it's actually a negative sum game for them that leads to a higher likelihood of arrest; they get lower quality guns that are more easily traced, will likely to have to steal multiple times putting themselves at risk every time, and the supply will still dry up long term. Meanwhile, Con is not responsive to the problems I've outlined that put any homeowner in danger following a home invasion. He simply adds other complicating factors. This doesn't diminish the problem, it just showcases how absurd it is to state that high capacity magazines are the only things standing between a homeowner and death when someone with a gun invades. Back to missing shots. A person is in a tense state of mind when they hear or see someone invading their property. They pick up a gun, and are liable to shoot at anything that moves to remove the threat. Especially since many home invasions occur at night, it will be difficult to distinguish targets. So the chances increase that their target will be incorrect in the first place. But there's also the fact that every single miss could potentially hit an innocent bystander, and much as Con says I'm mishandling this, he's simply not addressing the point. If you're able to fire more bullets without reloading, as you're likely to do if you're nervous for your life, then more shots will miss. Every missed shot is a chance to hit something else. That something else can very easily be an innocent bystander. Ergo, higher capacity magazines increase the probability of accidental shootings. If a person fires 10 rounds versus 100, they are 10 times more likely to hit their target and ten times more likely to hit anything else. Plain and simple. This is the reason that defending your home puts you in more danger, as my [3] explained. This is also the reason why more uses of a gun in self defense, as my [5] states, increase the danger. With that, I leave it to Con to provide his concluding statements. 1. http://www.nbcbayarea.com... 2. www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/01/13/assault-semiautomatic-weapons-ban/1566346/