Gun Rights

Rebuttal only this round as agreed upon. “manage as there are five times more people in the United States” This is a broadly irrelevant point to my central contention, which is that where guns are common, violations of the monopoly on force result in more deaths. Furthermore, guns haven’t been taken away from the population of the UK at all – those who wish to obtain a gun will obtain a gun. You cannot both contend that gun control is effective and not effective. Which one is it? “was per million or not” Rate implies per million. I mentioned this. “ Britain"s murder rate should be almost twice as much as America based on population.” What? Rate is based upon the number of murders per million, and if there are more deadly crimes being committed in America on a scale commensurate with the population of America then we’d expect Britain’s murder rate to be much lower, which it is. “ This is true, but the citizen is also allowed to defend their property with violence” This is included under self-defense – consider that your own person is your property. Irrelevant. “ This is true, but considering that most of the time the criminals have already finished what they did” The state also uses violence to prevent criminal activity – consider the judicial system and police forces stopping and searching people. Violence isn’t just actually assaulting someone, violence also includes things like arresting someone, putting them in jail (violation of their right to freedom of movement within the country) et cetera. “that most crimes are committed using a gun.” I never said this. I stated that most deadly crimes are committed using a firearm. “Criminals go to gun free zones just because they know they won"t be shot until the police show up. “ Fine, but irrelevant to my contention. Consider, first, that gun control, even if ineffective at getting rid of all guns makes it a lot harder to obtain a gun in the first place. This reduces the amount of guns, reducing the number of criminals with guns who can go to gun free zones, et cetera. Creating a culture of what is, essentially, escalation is unhelpful to both parties and results in more deaths, as I have demonstrated. Pro fails to attack my conclusions, just peripheral parts of my arguments. “the criminals get a hold on these tools as well through the black market and under the counter.” Black market and under the counter guns imply harder to get hold of. Sure, it won’t stop a particularly determined criminal from getting a firearm but it makes it harder for your average Joe criminal to obtain one, especially in anger. “This is true,” This concedes my point. “Yes, one of the goals is to decrease the deaths, but also the amount of crime.” If Pro is correct, criminals will obtain weapons to commit crimes no matter what regulation is upon them, therefore gun regulation is pretty ineffective at stopping crime. Now Pro’s stating that gun regulation is meant to decrease crime? Make up your mind. “Instead surprise him/her by knocking them unconscious.” And you need a firearm for this purpose why? Guns are a weapon to kill, not to knock someone out. “ Also, more shootings per year are in self defense than to take lives” True but misleading – for every shooting in America, in self defense or otherwise there are 22 accidental deaths. “ and armed citizens do take out more criminals than the police do a year” Possibly true, the source’s veracity is in question given that it’s “gunowners.org” but there’s two points we need to raise here. First, it’s absolutely not the duty of a citizen to “take out” a criminal. The state has a monopoly on initiating force and breaking that when not in self-defense is a criminal act. Second, for every self-defense or “taking out” a criminal shooting there are still 22 accidental deaths. Pro leaves my main points of contention untouched and fails to even address peripheral ones. Over to Pro, again.