We should have a ban on CCW

First, I would like to apologize for myself taking so long to respond to this debate; I’m flying out to an internship at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, so the last few days have been unbelievably hectic. Also, how do I put images into my debate? ===Burden of Proof=== To begin with, I will accept the burden of proof, by my opponent has made an incorrect assertion. I must not argue that banning CCW increases crime (though sources I will cite show that it does), rather, I must meet a lesser burden: that banning CCW plays a beneficial aspect to society. For example, hypothetically, if banning CCW causes a 10% increase in armed robberies, which are, say, 10 times as prevalent as murder, but a 90% drop in homicides, there is still a 10% increase in overall crime, but I would argue that the 90% drop in homicides outweighs the overall 10% increase in crime, thereby making a ban on CCW beneficial to society. This, therefore, is the point I shall argue, and I shall focus on homicide rates as my main point of contention, as homicides are the “worst” type of crime. As it was not set out in the original round, I shall argue not that banning CCW decreases the overall number of crimes, but rather that banning CCW plays a beneficial role in society. ===Rebuttal and Main Arguments=== Contention 1: Showing a short correlation over time with a sample of one country does not indicate proof that general gun control is harmful to society. My opponent has based a majority of his argument on a single study showing a downwards correlation between crime rate and gun control. However, many possible factors can contribute to this downward trend, especially given that the data in my opponent’s sample size of one country is subject to fluctuation. My opponent cited Canada and the UK as having strict gun control laws. Indeed, he is correct: Canada and, in fact, the entire European Union have much stricter gun control laws than the US, with the European Union having particularly strict laws enacted in recent years. [1] Consequently, the US has by far the highest homicide rate, at 4.8 murders per 100,000 people annually, compared to Canada at 1.62, the UK at 1.23, Ireland at 0.96, Italy at 0.87, the Netherlands at 0.86, Denmark at 0.85, Germany at 0.81, Norway at 0.68, and Austria at 0.56. [2] (Note the sample size here to be 10 countries, not one, as my opponent used.) Furthermore, Japan, where firearms are almost completely outlawed, has the lowest homicide rate of any country in the data set, at 0.34 murders per 100,000 people annually, only 7% of the US’s murder rate per capita. [2] So while gun control may be effective at deterring armed robbery in countries (studies I have cited show, however, that it is not), it is clearly ineffective at reducing homicide rate. As in my prior statement, I would submit that such a drastic drop in homicide rates (for example, Japan’s apparent 93% reduction in homicide compared to the US) would outweigh an apparent increase in a less violent and far more prevalent crime such as armed robbery. (Also to be taken into consideration when considering the facts my opponent cited about Canadian robbery is the far lower general robbery rate per capita in Canada, at 94.2 robberies per 100,000 people, compared to the US at 146.4. [3]) Contention 2: The allowance of Carrying Concealed Weapons (CCW) only happened to coincide with multiple other factors to explain the drop in crime. It is not responsible for it. To quote a famous study by Levitt, et al, “The highly publicized work of Lott and Mustard (1997) claimed enormous reductions in violent crime due to concealed weapons laws. The theory behind this claim is straightforward: armed victims raise the costs faced by a potential offender. The empirical work in support of this hypothesis, however, has proven to be fragile along a number of dimensions. First, allowing concealed weapons should have the greatest impact on crimes that involve face-to-face contact and occur outside the home where the law might affect gun carrying. Robbery is the crime category that most clearly fits this description, yet Ayres and Donohue (2003) demonstrate that empirically the passage of these [CCW-allowing] laws is, if anything, positively related to the robbery rate.” [4] Levitt concludes, “Crime fell sharply and unexpectedly in the 1990s. Four factors appear to explain the drop in crime: increased incarceration, more police, the decline of crack and legalized abortion. Other factors often cited as important factors driving the decline do not appear to have played an important role: the strong economy, changing demographics, innovative policing strategies, gun laws and increased use of capital punishment.”[4] Essentially, Levitt found in this study that allowing a wider use of CCW had little appreciable effect on causing the drop in crime in the 1990’s that my opponent has cited. In fact, in table 5 of the included citation [4], Levitt cites with a high degree of certainty that CCW played absolutely no role in decreasing crime in the aforementioned period. Rather, the passage of the CCW laws simply coincided with a much more unexpected cause: with the advent of legalized abortion some 20-or-so years earlier, the poorest children who were most likely to grow up to commit violent crimes had actually, to be frank, never been born. Hence, fewer criminals were populating the street and less violent crimes were being committed. Furthermore, studies by Ares and Donohue found that CCW has actually played a detrimental role in stopping crime. [4] Contention 3: Counterstudy: Lenient Shall-Issue CCW policies INCREASE crime rates. According to a Yale study by Donohue, et al, after analyzing crime rates in relevant periods of time relating to the adoption of gun-allowing lenient shall-issue CCW policies in the US, “We ran just such a regression model [on crime statistics] that controlled only for the average crime rate in the state and the common national influence each year and found that adoption of a shall-issue law was associated with an almost sixteen percent increase in robbery. …[this regression yielded results that are] uniformly statistically significant and positive, suggesting that shall-issue laws increase crime.” [5] This study, unlike the ones cited by my opponent, includes detailed regression analysis to accurately reflect the decline in crime in the 1990s, allowing for the isolation of the effect gun control has on crime rates rather that analyzing a conglomeration of effects. In short, the study concluded that allowing the use of CCW increased crime rates by almost 16% and is harmful to society. ===Conclusion=== Though, in principle, the “more guns, less crime” hypothesis makes sense, statistics are against it. The only statistics my opponent have been able to provide have not been normalized to take other variables into account, as the implementation of CCW simply happens to coincide with a number of other factors, such as the 20th year mark of the legalization of abortion, among other factors. In short, CCW is ineffective at stopping or preventing crime, and has been showed in studies to actually increase crime significantly instead of reducing it. Furthermore, as to the argument about general gun control, countries with stricter gun control almost universally have lower crime rates than countries with less or no gun control. In short, CCW increases crime, increases murder rate, and poses a danger and detriment to society. I ask, therefore, that you render a decision in favor of Pro, that the ability to carry concealed weapons should be banned. ===References=== [1] http://www.nytimes.com... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] http://www.nationmaster.com... [4] http://neuro.bcm.edu...[Levitt]2004.pdf [5] http://islandia.law.yale.edu...