Should people be allowed to own fire arms? (guns)

It is unfortunate that my opponent has forfeited this past round. Regardless, I will proceed with rebuttals. R1) Self-Defense Pro claims that guns are an effective form of self-defense. This has been proven to be completely false. According to studies conducted by the Violence Policy Center, there are a number of practical issues that make it nearly impossible for a civilian to ever effectively use a gun for self-defense. The vast majority of civilians are not well-trained enough to safely handle a gun even in ideal conditions (i.e. an enclosed shooting range); in an actually-dangerous situation, there are "extreme physiological and psychological effects that the experts, many of whom have on-the-street law enforcement experience with firearms, agree inevitably occur in an armed life-or-death confrontation (the only situation in which lethal force is justified in self-defense)," [1]. To suggest that the average civilian could actually successfully utilize a firearm for self-defense where it actually counts is absurd. There is no way that whatever minimal 'benefits' that could come from the self-defense aspect of civilian firearm ownership actually outweigh the increased homicide rates caused by it. And it shows-- "in 1998, for every time that a civilian used a handgun to kill in self-defense, 51 people lost their lives in handgun homicides alone." [1]. As long as we are on the issue of self-defense, I will also go ahead and address the common Pro-gun argument that "criminals still have guns". The whole notion is blatantly false, simply due to a matter of economics. The vast majority of guns owned by criminals originate from legal producers [2], so if a gun ban were to cause those legal producers to cease in their production of guns, it would suddenly make it much, much more difficult for criminals to obtain guns. They would be forced to resort to much slower and more expensive methods. The fact that criminal gun ownership would inadvertently decrease with a gun ban, combined with the fact that most civilians wouldn't be able to use guns to ward off criminals anyways, renders this contention completely refuted. Guns do not have a significant 'self-defense' benefit to society. R2) Public Defense In accordance with the definition clarification, this contention should be disregarded, as military/police gun ownership does not fall under the category of civilian gun ownership, which is what this debate is about. R3) Food This argument, while interesting, is basically irrelevant in the context of modern day society. The only people who still hunt for food currently are those who live in nomadic tribes, and they make up roughly 0.4% of the world's population [3]. No matter how you look at it, the negative effects of pressuring such a tiny portion of the world population to adopt a different life style are absolutely minuscule in comparison to the great benefits that would come to the developed world from a gun ban; it is most certainly worth the trade-off. Furthermore, Pro has provided no evidence that firearms are these peoples' primary choice of weapon; such a notion would actually seem quite counter-intuitive, considering that most nomads live such a lifestyle either out of a lack of contact with urban societies (and therefore wouldn't have guns) or out of a desire to 'stick to traditional values' (in which case it would be hypocritical to make an exception for a weapon as unorthodox as a firearm). This contention is refuted. _______________________________________________________ In conclusion, the benefits of owing firearms are virtually non-existent, while a total civilian gun ban would inevitably lead to a substantial decrease in homicide rates and violent crime in general. It is clear that civilians should not be allowed to own firearms; thus, the resolution is negated. Vote Con! [1] http://www.vpc.org... [2] http://www.pbs.org... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org...