"Assault Rifles" (AR-15's Legality)

"That isn't how this works. If you put up gun control in Indiana people are going to smuggle guns in from other states, if the whole nation gets gun control smugglers will get them in from out of the country. It's the same with drugs, they are illegal in all states, so smugglers smuggle them in from out of the country." - Fair enough. But there are 2 problems with this. First, if the guns are coming from out of the country, our gun laws don't apply, so the hypothetical problem would be with our border control, not our gun laws. Secondly, while yes, illegal guns will be smuggled in, the amount of illegal guns in the country will go down. Why? Well, look at your source. They say that most of the illegal guns used in Chicago come from other states, where they are legally bought. So it is easy for guns to be taken to Chicago. However, to get guns from out of the country would be much harder. You need to bring it from Mexico, passed the border, and then travel 1000 miles North to get the guns to Chicago. This would bottleneck the amount of guns getting to Chicago, as it would be way harder then driving a few minutes to Indiana, and buying a gun easily, and driving back. "the constitution is my source, the very first words were "we the people" not "we the states" or "we the militia" or "we the government" - Yeah, in the Preamble, not the second amendment. "like I said in the comments, there are too many sources to link them, so I post the video because it contains all of the links." - Yes, the comments exist. Post sources there. "you didn't disprove my statement about the comma." - This is because it was sourceless. "the point of the well-regulated militia part is to establish that arms are to be used in a well-regulated militia, but the comma is there to separate that from "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." what other reason is there for the comma? I could send you a source telling you the meaning of a comma, but you should already know a comma is to separate two parts of a sentence." - This is called a strawman argument. I never said, "What's the point of the comma?" I said, "What's the point of the first clause then?" If we interpret it your way, it doesn't make sense, as the first established nothing and there would be no reason for it. If you interpret it my way, it makes more sense. It establishes the right for militias to exist. This is because, as I've stated before, the U.S. army was almost nonexistent then, so the founding fathers decided to use the people to defend our country as well. Also, people used commas much more often back then then they did now. This is obviously if you look at pieces of writing from then. So it is more likely that the comma is there because the fathers thought it would sound better. "gun laws do affect law abiding citizens when you say what guns they can and cannot own, just because that's the gun a criminal owned. Non-restrictive gun laws aren't the issue, it's banning certain guns. I'd agree that fully-automatic weapons should not be in civilians hands, but a semi-automatic self-defense, hunting, and sporting gun should not be illegal.(the AR-15)" - I disagree. The AR-15 is not good for hunting or self defense. Hunting takes patience. You wait for hours, then when you see an animal, you slowly aim, then fire your shot. If you miss your first round, the animal will obviously hear you and run away. If you had a semiauto, maybe you could get another shot, but is that really the point of hunting? Your aren't supposed to fire tons of rounds at an animal, you only should need one, or more, if you track it. Yes, you can use it, but it is not meant for it. You could use pretty much any gun for hunting, at with varying effects. This doesn't mean Nerf guns or .50 cals are meant for it, or best for it. As for home defense, the best gun would be a shotgun, or a pistol. A semi auto gun is a medium range gun, poorly suited for an intruder 5 feet away from you. [A] With no valid source. [B] Once again, I can throw out this source. It has no evidence, other then the authors say so. The source says the fathers knew about the Air Rifle, but once again, it links to no historical documents or anything of that sort. [C] This is incorrect [1]. This is a link to a video with a gun that can be fired while attached to a drone. So this is legal for civilians. My point is again, as tech improves, laws need to as well. Yes, the Giradoni Air Rifle existed, but it is nothing compared to the guns we have today. "the point of that clearly flew right over your head. Madison let a civilian ship bear almost exclusively military arms was the point. No, I don't think civilians need military-grade firearms, but an AR-15 is a civilian grade weapon." - I don't get what you are trying to say here. "the peoples right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" I don't understand how you can make that statement when the second amendment clearly disagrees. Banning guns would be a move made in SEVERE disregard of the second amendment. http://www.annenbergclassroom.org...... "We hold that the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense." The court said that banning the possession of handguns is an infringement of the Second Amendment. The functionality of a handgun and an AR-15 Is essentially identical. AR-15s just "look scary" - This doesn't rebut my statement. The Supreme Court ruling doesn't address my point. "how about Venezuela? They banned most firearms and have a much higher gun murder rate than the U.S. Or Honduras, which has stricter gun regulations and one of the highest gun murder rates in the world? Or Brazil? Or Swaziland? Or Guatemala, Jamaica, El Salvador, or Colombia? Because those countries follow strict gun laws, and have higher murder rates than the us." - Oh come on. You don't expect people to buy this, right? These are all 3rd world countries, some of which have drug cartels. These are not fair comparisons. My opponent has dropped my main argument: reduction of crime. I provided 3 examples to prove this. Japan, Canada, and the individual states. Canada and Japan have a significantly lower crime rate then the HS, and they have much stricter gun laws. I then provided and example of the states. I provided a chart which showed that states with more gun laws had a lower gun homicide rate. My opponent drops this completely. So he agrees; gun control reduces crime. "Our murder rate is much lower than theirs actually, it's our suicide rate that makes our gun death rate as high as it is. If we were basing it off of just gun murder, America would be far lower on this list. We don't need gun control, we need therapy, apparently." - Lower then whos'. And I was only basing this off gun homicides. "surprise, surprise, states with more knives have more knife related deaths, places with more cars tend to have more pollution, places with more criminals tend to have more crime. How about having people defend themselves from the crime that happens?" - What is this rebutting? "You can require safety measures, but you can't stop an idiot from being an idiot with them. how about more gun safety classes? That seems like a less expensive and more effective thing, to teach idiots what to do and what not to do with firearms, and not blame the gun if the idiot does something stupid with their firearm, instead of punishing law abiding citizens for it." - Exactly. I said we should require safety courses and safety measures in order to buy and keep guns. This would educate the idiots and would hopefully stop them from buying guns. For your second point, I wouldn't have a problem with guns. it is just that weak gun laws and more guns equals more death. I think guns are cool, but I believe people's lives far outweigh hobbies. "so you're saying it's a bad thing that people who carry firearms are much less likely to be involved in crime? I don't see your point. You're saying we need to stop concealed carry because it stops crime. As I said, a study showed that even an armed criminal is much less likely to engage with someone who they believe has a weapon on them. If more people carry, criminals will fear them more." - Sorry, I didn't make my point clear. The study I linked too showed that 75% of convicted felons said they carried guns because their victims might be armed as well. So the more people get armed, the more criminals arm themselves. This means innocent people could get shot by criminals, just because of the chance they were carrying guns. To conclude, I believe that passing more gun laws is a good thing. It will reduce crime, as showed in the real world. It also can reduce accidental deaths, and suicides. It also is constitutional, and, if it wasn't, laws need updating as tech advances. Thanks for the debate! Source: https://m.youtube.com...