Gun Control is an important issue in Canada and the US

I thank my honourable opponent for his acceptance. From his issues bar I see that we have similar opinions, this, however, we disagree on. I do not think that gun control is an important issue in either Canada or the US. This is not a debate about whether I am for or against, but rather I think that this issue is given far more airtime and far more political weight than it should be. Here's why... 1) Guns are no longer relevant to stopping tyrants This is for all of you who believe that if guns are made illegal your country will become a police state. The answer is that if a battle between government forces and Joe the survivalist with his trusty 9mm were ever to occur, the SWAT Teams (and tanks if necessary) would win. Even with a massive militia stockpile of rifles, submachine guns, and grenades which are already illegal, the minutemen wouldn't stand a chance. Unless you plan construct your own tanks, discount this reason to passionately defend your second amendment rights entirely. 2) Violent crime is not a major issue in either Canada or the US People on either side tend to take the position that violent crime is a critical issue, so gun legality will have a large effect by either increasing or decreasing it's prevalence. What nobody mentions is that violent crime has been on the DECREASE in Canada and the US since the mid 90s, from 9.5 homicides per 100,000 people per year in 1993 to 5.9 of them in 2007 (1) in the US to take murder as an example. Note that no significant changes were made to firearms laws in the early 90s. The Canadian statistics are similar in this regard. By contrast, there were 13.04 homicides per 100,000 people in Mexico in 2004 (2), and that number did not change significantly since the 90s or up until today. 3) Banning guns does not necessarily impact gun crime In South Africa, a country where 31.8/100,000 people die every year from gun violence, gun licenses are strictly regulated. What policymakers must understand is that violent crime has a root cause, and that cause is not necessarily mere availability. As everyone knows, explosives are easy enough to make. The bombs used by terrorist Timothy Mcveigh to blow up the Oklahoma City government buildings were built on a farm. Also, illicit firearms will remain in the country for many years hence, and it is easy enough for criminal cartels to smuggle them in, as has been the case in South Africa. Gun stats gathered in Chicago found no correlation between banning guns and reduced crime. A handgun ban became effective in 1983 and since that time incidents of murders committed with handguns have been on the increase. (5) 4) Your gun isn't protecting either you or your family There is a too often quoted statistic that in 1995, there were 2.5 million defensive gun uses. That is, homeowners apparently used their guns in defense 2.5 million times that year. (6) This is an exaggerated statistic that has been stretched to refer to the present day and that was based on the amount of times homeowners "used" their guns, which could be just to check something out in the backyard. The FBI counted 213 justified uses of firearms per year on average between 2006 - 2010. This means that using a gun in self defense worked only 0.00852% of the time (6). 213 cases of justified homicide by firearm, in the entire US. This means that of the 270 million firearms that Americans own and cherish, 0.00000078% are used in self defense. That is the chance that you will kill an intruder with your trusty Walter PPK in any given year, folks. That means that if you keep your pistol beside your pillow between the ages of 20 and 80, you 0.0000473% chance of killing an intruder to defend your beloved home. Sorry. The essence of this point is that you will not die if the government takes your guns away. In closing, there is no reason to believe that gun control affects the millions of lives that the media has told us it does. There are other issues, however, that do affect millions of lives. The fact, for instance, that the richest 1% of Americans are worth 43% of the nation's entire financial wealth, and the poorest 80% are worth 7% of the nations entire financial wealth. (9) Or the fact that between 416 and 928 innocent civilians were killed in drone strikes overseas in strikes initiated by Obama since that program's beginning, 168 to 200 of whom were children. (10) In short, gun rights are not an important issue in either Canada or the US. No matter what the media tells you, whether or not you are permitted to sleep with a gun under your pillow tonight will not affect the country, or your own safety, in any significant way. Except you might watch television and become terrified. It doesn't matter WHAT you're terrified of, whether it's that the government will take your gun or that an intruder will kill you with a gun, so long as you're scared. That's what makes money for the media. Sweet dreams. 1) http://www.infoplease.com... 2) http://en.wikipedia.org... 3) http://www.gunpolicy.org... 4) http://en.wikipedia.org... 5) http://www.justfacts.com... 6) http://www.cnn.com... 7) http://www.reuters.com... 8) http://www.forbes.com... 9) http://currydemocrats.org... 10) http://news.yahoo.com...