Gun Rights

== NEG CASE ==CA1) Decreasing Homicide Rates I'm not really sure what Pro's response to this even is. He mentions something about how Australia has low rates of mass shootings and high rates of violent crime, but he fails to describe what exactly this implies or how it connects to the resolution; I am left without a clue of what he is trying to tell us with that observation. He then goes on to note that Chicago has more gun control than most cities yet still is one of America's most violent places. Again, he fails to actually describe what this is supposed to prove, but whatever point he is making, it is a correlation/causation fallacy because it is attempting to draw a causal relationship based on the patterns of just two variables (gun control and violence) without taking into account any external variables. For example, in Chicago, poverty and social tensions are major contributing factors to the violent crime there (http://www.chicagomag.com...), so it wouldn't be reasonable to claim that the high gun control somehow causes more violent crime just because they correlate.CA2) Gun Rights are UnnecessaryPro concedes that using guns for self-defense is implausible, but he then asserts that guns can still deter crime by instilling fear in criminals. This may be true, but he doesn't demonstrate that this happens often enough to even begin to mitigate all the homicides which are facilitated by the presence of guns. He also asserts that the 'black market' would still be able to get guns to criminals on the basis that they "specialize in selling illegal things", but that just ignores the entire point of my argument... as I explained last round, almost all criminal gun distributors get their guns from legal producers, so if those legal producers had to stop making them due to a gun ban, then the distributors would have no supply, thus depriving criminals of gun ownership just as much as citizens. == AFF CASE ==R1) Bill of RightsThe Constitution is a living document designed specifically to allow the Founding Fathers' successors to change it when needed to adapt to the times. If there is good reason to repeal the second amendment, then it should be repealed; the observation that it is already on the Bill of Rights doesn't serve as an argument for why it should stay there. Also, note that the resolution isn't necessarily US-specific, so Constitutionality arguments really shouldn't apply at all. R2) Hobbyists & CollectorsPro seems to be valuing the enjoyment of a relatively small population of people over the many lives that would be saved from the reduced homicide effect of a gun ban. I doubt Pro would contest that a human life is more valuable than temporary pleasure...R3) Public OppositionThis argument is non-topical. The resolution of the debate is about whether or not people should be allowed to own guns; it is about whether gun rights are justified in theory-- not the practical aspects of repealing those rights. If the resolution were about the implementation of a specific gun control policy, then this argument might hold some weight, but it is not, and so it doesn't.My arguments have all been upheld, and all of Pro's have been refuted.Back to my opponent.