Citizens should be able to own guns.

I'm honestly surprised Pro has taken such an effort to enforce the notion that guns are effective at self-defence. Did he think I thought guns were anything but incredibly dangerous? I guess I have to admit defeat in that I agree, guns are very good at self defence. I wonder why...? Anyway, let me get into my own points and then refute my opponent's. 1. I assume this debate will be one of opposing philosophies. Pro no doubt believes that the greatest way to assure peace and non-violence is to equip hundreds of millions of people with the most deadly weapon in the history of mankind: The firearm. I, however, believe that if fewer people have guns, there will be less gun crimes. 2. Looking at this from an economic standpoint, the availability of guns has an effect on the manufacturing of guns. For example: Guns being legal means most people have guns. Why? Because everyone else has guns. I don't think you want to be the one guy on your block without a glock when you live in a notoriously dangerous and homicidal nation. So, everyone has guns, so gun manufacturers need to make millions of guns to keep up with demands. What happens is when you have hundreds of millions of guns floating around a country, criminals are gonna get their hands on them. Sorry, but this fantasy Pro has created that if only law-abiding citizens can BUY guns, only they will HAVE guns, is completely ridiculous. Regarding my rebuttal... 1. "Gun control may save some lives, but in the end it ends more lives than it saves." Again, this falls on the absurd notion that more guns equates to less deaths. If you buy that nonsense then you can go ahead and vote Pro because you're beyond logical thought and you have no use for my arguments. 1A. First of all, I checked out the citation where Pro got his stats. I wasn't surprised to find that they were "Estimates" made by a an organization that exists for the sole purpose of getting as many weapons in as many households as possible. But hey, I'm a nice guy, I'll pretend those surveys and stats were taken in the interest of fact and critical analysis, and not in the interest of promoting an organization's agenda. Say guns are used for protection 8,000 times a day. What my opponent says is "protection", but he avoids that what he is also saying is that there are 8,000 violent crimes perpetrated daily in America. Such an environment is not one which you should wish to have a large quantity of deadly weapons. 1B. It amazes me that Pro talks so excitedly about how easily a gun can take a life and how even a child can kill someone when he or she has a gun in their hands. Actually, that doesn't surprise me. What does surprise me, however, is that he uses the lethality of a gun as a point in his favour of why there should be millions of them on the streets. I'm almost embarrassed to be writing arguments for the Con side when Pro is so graciously attempting to do that for me. As my opponent has said, guns are great tools for not only killing effortlessly, but to inspire such great terror and intimidation that even hardened criminals break free from their convictions at the mighty, deadly firearm. I was about to rebut 1C but it has really begun to sink in that the one and only argument Pro has in favour of guns is their capability of self defence. You know what else is a good means of self defence? A pride of vicious lions. I'd say those would be just as intimidating as a gun. Since I've already rebutted his one and only point, I'll skip to the conclusion. The question posed is, "Considering all of this information, why should we deny citizens an effective self defense option that has been proven to prevent more crime than it causes?". Well, a couple of reasons, actually. One, Pro hasn't proved that without guns there would be more crime. He has proven that guns have been used to intervene and stop criminal activities in progress. He has not proven and could not possibly prove that there would be more crimes of any type without guns. Such a notion is not only impossible to prove but rediculous in theory. But to answer his question, I say that trying to solve a problem by increasing the capacity to cause problems is short-sighted and misses the point. In summation, Con because limiting the amount of tools used for violence limits violence, and not Pro because the ability of someone to kill with guns is a reason why millions of Americans shouldn't have guns, not the other way around.