On balance a ban on guns would not be that effective in the US

Thank you. I would like to present my rebuttals and counter-arguments. R1) The intent of a gun ban In his first argument, my opponent made some rather questionable claims. His statements beg the question: How much is a life worth? Pro states, “On balance a small drop in the bucket does not counteract the cost, the effort, nor accomplish the initial intent of the gun ban.” As stated above, the questions must be asked, whether a life has a price tag. I am sure that Pro would not mind a gun ban if then years from now, a gun that would have been taken away kills someone he knows. Using his logic, the lives of thousands are not important, but rather the money spent on buybacks and bans. “My adversary has just conceded that this only reduces a small amount of harm, therefore per the resolution he concedes this.” I have not conceded this point. I have showed above and will continue: Gun buybacks, even if seemingly unsuccessful save lives. It doesn’t matter how many lives it saves or the cost, because that could be the life of someone you know. R2) Culture In this section, my opponent provides a graph of the percentage of Americans who are in favor of a ban, and those who are not. This graph, however, is not a reliable source. My opponent has not provided a source, and has not specified what Americans were surveyed. Since it is not specified, that chart could be a survey of middle aged people from the South. Understand the bias? Thus, that chart cannot be taken into consideration. R3) Gun buybacks a) Rather than commit an ad populum as my opponent claimed, I rather reviewed and displayed what the article show. That proposition is not correct, and has not backup or explanation, and thus cannot be considered. b) I understand that many are against gun control laws from being passed. But, if they were passed, it doesn’t matter if you are against it, you would have to abide by it.The following chart: {3} shows that the South has more deaths caused by firearms refuting your point. The south may be against it, but their extremely high number of firearms and their high number of gun-related murders prove that the south is all the more fitting for gun bans. To continue…-Regarding the NRA- As my opponent states, “The NRA has extreme influence within the government and has a huge impact on laws that are passed. Here is just one example [11].” In addition, he states, “for it to actually be effective it would actually have to be passed which it has no chance of doing[12]” My opponent has to realize that the government does not have to be at the mercy of some organization. The government has more power than the NRA, and as long as people push for new laws and crimes continue to occur{2}, the politicians and NRA will feel obliged to listen-just like all the new gay marriage and marijuana legalizations. My point by that is that as long as people continue to push for it, politicians should do their job and pass laws that appeal to a common interest. R4) The root cause/ gun laws being ineffectiveMy opponent states, “Here are just some more studies to prove that. These are situations where crime and murder rates went up directly after gun bans. [1]" [P]er capita murder overall is only half as frequent in the United States as in several other nations where gun murder is rarer, but murder by strangling, stabbing, or beating is much more frequent. (p. 663 - emphases in original)" [2]Again this study from harvard shows that when guns are banned, crime with other weapons soar. This proves that people will find other weapons and ways to commit crime and violent if guns are banned. So on balance we are not addressing the problem” Response: Like most of my opponents claims for this point, he directly connects gun bans to the increase in murder rates. What he fails to realize is that the increase in murder rates does not necessarily correlate to gun bans. As an example, simply because I take a shower after watching TV does not mean that TV causes me to take showers, or I took a shower as a result of watching TV. In addition, my opponent has failed to realize that statistics are not always the most accurate depiction of the situation since other factors could be affecting the murder rates. In addition, I can show that some of my opponents sources are not all absolute in their claims. The following article{1} shows that a lower percentage of gun ownership showed lower firearm homicide rates. As stated by the article, “With all this preliminary work in hand, the authors ran a series of regressions to see what effect the overall national decline in firearm ownership from 1981 to 2010 had on gun homicides. The result was staggering: “for each 1 percentage point increase in proportion of household gun ownership,” Siegel et al. found, “firearm homicide rate increased by 0.9″ percent. A one standard deviation change in firearm ownership shifted gun murders by a staggering 12.9 percent.To put this in perspective, take the state of Mississippi. “All other factors being equal,” the authors write, “our model would predict that if the FS/S in Mississippi were 57.7% (the average for all states) instead of 76.8% (the highest of all states), its firearm homicide rate would be 17% lower.” Since 475 people were murdered with a gun in Mississippi in 2010, that drop in gun ownership would translate to 80 lives saved in that year alone.” This information and data disproves those of my opponent that claim that fewer guns in circulation correlates with higher homicide rates. As I have stated before, there are other factors that are not being taken into account with that data. In conclusion, I have effectively shown to you that a ban on guns would be effective in the United States. I have refuted the claims that my opponent has made, and have also disproved the false assumptions he has been using. I showed that his data is not reliable nor does it hold true. My fellow citizens, I thank you for reading this debate, and urge you to vote fairly. I would like to thank Mikal for this debate and this experience, one I have learned a lot from, and for all those who participated. Thank you. - Shadow-Dragon -Sources{1} http://thinkprogress.org...{2} http://www.stophandgunviolence.com...{3} http://cdn.theatlantic.com...