Other than the exceptions outlined below, arms should not be regulated

I will defend my own stances as well and rebut the points my opponent has made. A. Self Defense Just because arms have not likely been used for self defense, doesn't mean that the gun itself cannot be used for self-defense. This doesn't really negate my point. They can still be used for self-defense and it's an important reason why guns should not be regulated to the degree that they are. In addition, there is an example of a case that study offered that is clearly not an example of self-defense: "A 62 year old male said that at 6 pm "the police called. My alarm at my business went oV so I went there to shut it oV. Two men were outside my building, so from my car I shot at the ground near them". The respondent said the men were trespassing". You're claiming these are self-defense cases, but this isn't even one. There was no threat to the person in this instance, so it could be that many of the examples offered in the survey are not even self-defense cases. I would also like to point out from this survey that "on the 1999 survey, 131 respondents reported a hostile gun uses against them"[1] which is more than the number of people reported having used a gun for self-defense. If anything, this would be an argument for why we need guns. In these instances where someone had a hostile gun use against them, they could have defended themselves with a gun. B. Adequate Protection This problem is easily fixed by having a class in school teaching self-defense and use of firearms. I'd say schools should be teaching this kind of thing. If such a class existed, then this point my opponent made would not be true at all. You must remember: there are other solutions to these gun-related issues you're bringing up besides regulating the guns themselves. Liberty: I think you are putting too much faith into the election process. Politicians are easily bought, and it's not the people who have the most influence over government anymore. In a study on American politics conducted by Princeton, it is mentioned that there are four theories in which to characterize American politics: "Majoritarian Electoral Democracy, Economic-Elite Domination ,and two types of interest-group pluralism"Majoritarian Pluralism, in which the interests of all citizens are more or less equally represented, and Biased Pluralism, in which corporations, business associations, and professional groups predominate."[2] This study found that the average citizen has minuscule effect on the government's policies, and that Economic elites and interest groups are the ones with the most influence in American politics, which is evidence for Economic-elite Domination and Biased Pluralism [2]. Simply electing a new leader is completely pointless since economic elites will soon contribute money to that leader, who will then do the interests of the elites rather than of the people who voted for them. Even if they are an honest individual, it is very difficult to ignore the desires of the elites when they are the ones who gave you lots and lots of money. In addition, gerrymandering greatly reduces the effects the people have on their government, and it should be noted that only 40% of people even approve of the job their own representative does[3] and the trend is that this number if going down. If people had control over the government, and could simply elect a representative they truly like, they would have done so by now. As it stands, majority don't even approve of the job of their own representative. Gerrymandering, political contributions, a lack of term limits, the inherent two party system we have etc all prevent the people from putting in a representative they actually want. So, I believe I have sufficiently disproved that you can simply vote for a new representative and that this would be a viable alternative to making sure government is not corrupt, since who we vote for almost doesn't even matter. I'm sure I also don't need to point out how unpopular the two most recent candidates for president were. Majority disapproved of both. Simply voting for someone else doesn't cut it. What is often the case in the two party system we have, we have to choose between the lesser of two evils, because it isn't viable to vote for a third party candidate. Now, I suppose there are a few other solutions to this other than a violent revolution: we can pass amendments to the constitution preventing or heavily limiting political contributions from corporations and elites, an amendment to change our voting system to a ranked preference voting system(this would greatly improve the chances of third parties), a term limits amendment, and an amendment that makes gerrymandering illegal. However, you have to keep in mind: you have to convince 2/3 of the state legislatures to do all of this, and since it would be to their advantage to keep the system as it is, it's not likely all of these things would pass. In addition, even if we did get them all to pass, it doesn't prevent the possibility of a dictator rising. Someone could completely lie to get to the office of president, congress could give up it's powers in a state of emergency to that president, and an amendment could be passed to give that president extra power. While this is not likely, it's still a possibility, and in such an instance, an armed populace is absolutely necessary. In addition, should someone who we elected decides to abuse power and congress were to give them absolute control over laws and is essentially now a dictator, what can an unarmed people do against that? We can't just vote that person out: they're a dictator now. Straw Purchases: Under what I suggest, people with guns wouldn't be tracked to begin with. There would be no registering a gun or anything of the sort. Again, there would be no need for straw purchases if there is no reason to do it. You say people do it most to avoid being tracked: well, under what I propose, people who simply buy a gun themselves won't be tracked at all. Black Market: A lot of what my opponent here argues is based on how if guns were not regulated, then there would be more crime. However, there are many other ways to end crime than through regulation of weapons. Getting rid of one tool to commit crime simply doesn't cut it, since people will come up with another way to commit the crime. One needs to end the reasons someone commits crime. Poverty is a big motivator for someone to commit a crime. If we focus on ending poverty, crime rates will go down. As someone who is anti-capitalist, and a libertarian socialist, I would suggest the best way to end crime is to make companies worker-controlled, and give self-autonomy to the workers. Doing so will mean each worker will be paid more since there will be no business owner at the top taking a part of the profits, and the money the business owner would take, would be split among the workers. These types of companies are known as cooperatives, and they do and have existed. You can look at my other debate on cooperatives for more information [4] My opponent seems to be blaming the gun for the crime, rather than the people themselves. You must remember, if someone wants to commit a crime, they will find a way to do it, regardless if guns are regulated, legal, or illegal. As for the fact that guns would be used for crime in other countries, that is not our problem. It's ultimately the fault of that other country for not handling its crime well. We can offer to help them implement policies that would reduce crime, such as combating poverty and other things, but if they refuse, then that's all we can and should do. If they have crime that spills into our nation, then we can demand that nation does something about it or else we cut relations off with them, or, if it gets too bad, we could even send in our own military to take care of the problem. Sources: [1] https://www.researchgate.net... [2] https://scholar.princeton.edu... [3] http://www.people-press.org... [4] http://www.debate.org...