Under no circumstances should arms be regulated

OBV 1 My opponent has left the definition of a regulation quite vague. He/she describes it as to limit the use of arms for any reason. This means that current laws that prevent people from buying weapons or using them also are eliminated. Framework We need to view today’s debate through the understanding that lives come first. This is the foremost principle of the US government, and any just democracy for that matter, which needs to be protected. This idea was planted in the heads of the founding fathers to the point that the preamble of the constitution states the following: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” (1) The founding fathers wanted the people to be protected and made sure to include the idea that the general welfare, aka the people of the US, is the entire reason that the constitution was made to begin with. This is exactly what government’s main function is. In fact, looking at the Social Contract Theory proves this. The theory suggests that people have a contract with their government where certain rights are given up, for example being tethered by laws and paying taxes, for protection and for their welfare to be respected (11). This was clearly important as John Locke’s specific Social Contract Theory was a huge inspiration for how our government works today. Thus, weigh every single impact to that metric. C1: Safety of the people Realize that existing and new regulations are needed to guarantee that people are safe. For this we can look toward a massive problem in the status quo that needs to be addressed, that being the unintentional shootings of children. The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in coordination with the Americans for Responsible Solutions in June of 2015 reports that almost 1.7 million children live in homes with loaded, unlocked guns (2). This facilitates unintentional shootings all around the US that are unfettered without laws to prevent them. Everytown Research in June of 2014 reports that 100 deaths from accidental shootings of children occurred between December of 2012 and December of 2013, nearly 2 deaths every week. All the while, an estimated 70% of these deaths could have been prevented if the firearm had been unloaded and locked (3). However, people are generally unprepared for accepting responsibility, especially owning a weapon as shown by the fact that over a million children are living in a home where they could potentially retrieve a gun with very little effort, (see my Law Center card.) That is where Child Access Prevention (CAP) laws come into place. James M. Jeffords reports from the Vermont Legislative Research Service to show what these laws are and why they are important. First, we need to understand what these laws are, so, Mr. Jeffords tells us that CAP laws are laws that provide a legal framework for how firearms should be stored in the US. For instance, one law would impose liability on an adult if a minor would be able to retrieve a gun that was negligibly stored, while others prohibit giving a gun to minor (4). However, despite the difference and variance of these laws, there is one indisputable fact about them. They work. Mr. Jeffords continues, citing the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1997 which estimated the effect of 12 different state CAP laws prior to 1994 and found that they decreased unintentional shootings in children by 23%. Not only this, but a more recent study in 2000 from the John Hopkins University school of Public Health found that Florida, which has the toughest and oldest CAP law in history, a 51% decrease in accidental shooting occurred over 8 years. While other states did not have the same effect, the report even admitted this could be due to a variety of other factors including the severity of breaking the CAP law in question, and even the fact that some states only recently established these laws (4). Finally, though, let us look at storage of these weapons in homes. Mr. Grossman and other medical experts in 2005 conducted a study to determine the link between safe storage and a reduction in accidental shootings. The result show that the 4 practices off keeping a gun locked, unloaded, storing ammunition locked, and in a separate location are each correlated with a protective effect and reduce the injuries in places where guns are stored. These regulations that address storage, and even laws that prohibit minors from receiving these weapons are important to limit the amount of deaths from irresponsible gun management. This resolution would eliminate all laws that correspond with “limiting the use” of firearms. However, regulations that limit the use of firearms means that the existing statutes that prevent minors from accessing and owning a weapon. C2: Straw gun purchases Second, we need to realize how this resolution prevents any progress forward to prevent gun crime. First though, we need to understand exactly what a straw gun purchase is in relation to firearms. Dan Noyes of PBS News explains that straw gun purchases are instances where an individual who is unable to purchase a gun by law uses a companion who purchases the gun, usually in a suggestive manner in the actual gun store by pointing or gesturing toward a preferred weapon, and gives it to the person who could not buy it on their own (6). While this behavior seems only minor and not important to begin with, by looking closer we can see the disastrous effects that these straw gun purchases have on the crime rate. In fact, well-informed individuals may already know a case where this tactic has been abused to commit a crime. The San-Bernardino shooters used this tactic to kill over a dozen people in a tragic shooting. Olivia Li of The Trace reports that one of the gunmen, Syed Rizwan Farook, asked his friend Enrique Marquez to buy 2 AR-15 rifles that were used in the shooting. This was not even used because he couldn’t pass a background check, as he already owned two pistols that he purchased legally. He just did not want these weapons traced back to him (7). However, we can see more evidence pointing toward the large impact that straw gun purchases have not just on homicides, but on the entirety of black market guns. Everytown in April of 2008 shows that 47% of gun trafficking cases involved a straw gun purchase, representing the largest source of how guns are trafficked. Not only this, but nearly all the crime guns trace back to a select few legal gun dealers, with 1% of these licensed dealers accounting for 57% of these traces (8). These dealers and those who buy these guns are technically breaking the law as interpreted by the Supreme Court. The SCOTUS Blog retells the Supreme Court Case of Abramski v. The United States where in November of 2009 a police officer by the name of Bruce Abramski purchased a Glock 19 pistol for his uncle in Pennsylvania for saving some money on the gun. However, a year later he was indicted for lying on his background track by indicating that he was the buyer of the gun. He challenged this ruling which made it all the way up to the Supreme Court where, in a 5-4 decision they determined this practice to be a straw purchase and illegal (9). This widened the interpretation for what a straw purchase is. Unfortunately, this did not respond in more jurisdictions taking straw gun purchases more seriously. Hansi Lo Wang of NPR in December of 2015 explains that while the penalties for straw gun purchases at a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, many gun experts, including Daniel Webster, head of the John Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research and retired Assistant Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, say that the reason many don’t get convicted is because prosecutors have to show a direct link between the straw purchaser and the person who received the gun through the other person as a proxy, which is hard (10). Because of this, many criminals will never face penalty and will put someone’s life at risk because of their negligent actions. The black market is prospering and criminals now have a steady supply of weapons. However, with federal action to scrutinize gun shops across America that are shown to sell to straw purchasers, we can stop this cycle of madness. Remember, most trafficked guns, including crime guns and straw gun purchased guns, are attributed to 1% of licensed dealers. This would mean that increased scrutiny for who can sell and increased regulations by scrutinizing straw-gun purchases will be the best possible solution to the problem at hand. But this resolution makes sure that any restriction on use of firearms would have to be stopped. This would include the laws governing straw gun purchases and future attempts at stopping the problem of straw gun purchases. Since we value the people in this debate, we have an obligation to negate to address the large bulk of murders in the status quo and to protect the general welfare of the people. Conclusion Realize that when viewing this debate through the metric of lives and the loss of said lives, the negation wins on the grounds of gun accidents occurring in youth and crime guns. Thus, negate this resolution. Sources 1. (http://tinyurl.com...) 2. (http://tinyurl.com...) 3. 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