gun control

These are the three arguments my opponent has given against gun control: 1. Criminals can still find guns on the black market 2. The more people that have guns, the less crime there is 3. The Second Amendment grants citizens the right to own guns I will now respond to these arguments in turn. 1. While the fact that criminals have access to guns is certainly a problem, it is one that is actually helped by gun control. According to the FBI, roughly 340,000 firearms are reported as stolen each year. These guns, almost all of which have been manufactured and purchased legally, inevitably end up being sold on the black market and end up in the hands of criminals. Had these guns never been made or sold, that would be 340,000 less guns owned by criminals in the US. Obviously, there will always be a way to illegally purchase firearms, but if buying a gun becomes much harder, then the price of illegal guns will skyrocket. For those of us who know economics, we know that this will then drive the demand down. Thus, gun control makes buying guns much more difficult for criminals. 2. This one is just blatantly untrue. My opponent attempts to provide it as fact, and then accuses those who choose to question this fact as sheep who blindly follow the media. Well it appears he's the one trying to pull the wool over our eyes. As this chart shows, "Gun death rates are highly correlated to the rate of gun ownership in a given area" (. http://www.guncontrol.ca...). People often cite self-defense as a reason for owning a gun, but as it turns out someone who owns a gun is 43 times more likely to use it on a family member or friend than an intruder (Arthur Kellermann and Donald Reay. "Protection or Peril? An Analysis of Firearm Related Deaths in the Home. " The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 314, no. 24, June 1986, pp. 1557-60. ). This same study also determines that someone who owns a gun is 2.7 times more likely to be murdered than someone who doesn't. Have I debunked this one enough yet? 3. First of all, simply because someone died for a cause does not make it some sort of absolute maxim. Our soldiers also fight for freedom of speech, but I can't yell fire in a crowded theater or publish a newspaper article that says that Britney Spears eats live puppies for dinner. The first example is more relevant. The right of other people not to be trampled trumps my right to free speech. If your right to own a gun interferes with my right not to be placed in the danger that that gun presents, then you can't own one. Secondly, as was determined in Quilici v. Village of Morton Grove, U. S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, 1982, "construing [the language of the Second Amendment] according to its plain meaning, it seems clear that the right to bear arms is inextricably connected to the preservation of a militia. " This, like many other sections of the Constitution, no longer pertains to modern society. Over the last 200 years, our system of checks and balances has shown that no one person or agency can have too much power. We are not at risk of tyranny at the hands of our own government like our founding fathers were. Finally, even if we were at risk, I can assure you your Winchester won't help you fight off that tank coming down the street. Now here are my reasons why gun control is necessary: 1. Guns are too lethal a. Approximately 60 percent of all murder victims in the United States in 1989 (about 12,000 people) were killed with firearms. According to estimates, firearm attacks injured another 70,000 victims, some of whom were left permanently disabled. In 1985 (the latest year for which data are available), the cost of shootings--either by others, through self-inflicted wounds, or in accidents--was estimated to be more than $14 billion nationwide for medical care, long-term disability, and premature death. (Editor's note: the number of gun victims has increased since 1989 to 15,456 gun homicides in 1994. Source: FBI UCR report. ) b. In robberies and assaults, victims are far more likely to die when the perpetrator is armed with a gun than when he or she has another weapon or is unarmed. 2. Gun control CURBS violence a. As the statistics I provided above show, the more citizens that own guns, the higher the violent crime rates is likely to be in a given area b. Gun control also curbs lethal domestic violence, the presence of a gun makes it easier to kill, makes the killing more instantaneous, more detached, and makes the killer have to think not at all about what he or she is doing. In short, people are not always thinking rationally, and when there is a gun around, it is easier for an irrational person to do greater damage. 3. Guns make suicide too easy a. Households with guns are 5 times more likely to experience a suicide than household without (. http://sun.soci.niu.edu...). Enough said. 4. There are very few good reasons to own a gun a. As I have shown, self-defense is a poor reason to cite for gun ownership as one is not likely at all to use it in such a manner. Guns are designed for one thing and one thing only: to kill human beings. This makes them nothing but a danger to public safety. 5. Gun control prevents criminals from obtaining guns a. See my previous arguments regarding background checks and the black market. Unfortunately, that's all the time I have. Like I said in my comment, I sincerely apologize to my opponent for my forfeiture and assure him that I had every intention of posting, I just got a little overwhelmed with midterms, golf, etc.