Citizens should be able to own guns.

1A. No, I don't believe that every one of those law abiding citizens had a gun. But apparently you believe that every one of those criminals has a gun. This is very perplexing when only 29% of criminals involved in violent crime had guns[1], while 30% of law abiding citizens had guns[2]. If law abiding citizens own more guns than criminals, then why would all criminals have guns but not all law abiding citizens? You only need 150,000,000 gun wielding criminals? That's fine with me. If you need about 50% of citizens to be criminals (maybe a bit less) and you only got less than .1%, that's a clear win for me. 1B. The first one is not a contradiction. If there is less guns, less guns will be used in crime. However, less guns will be used for protection as well, and as I have shown, there is more law abiding citizens with guns than criminals with guns, so crime would increase overall. And they wouldn't be able to protect themselves- at least they won't be able to close to the previous success rates. You advocate karate for protection rather than guns. Is karate as deadly as guns? No, it's not. It is worse then, because it does not attain as high protection rates. Do you think that saying "I know karate" can scare away 90% of criminals? It obviously can't. Imagine a grandma telling a criminal "I know karate" and scaring him away? 2. No, I was not showing that gun rights is better because of comparing countries. Cliff.Stamp. taught me why that doesn't work out well. I was just showing you that the US is not a "notoriously dangerous and homicidal" country. Nothing more, nothing less. Anyways, I already said that the US has a higher murder and rape rate, and 3.5 was referring to murder, not crime in general. But this doesn't matter. And I don't know how you got the idea that I insinuated anything along the lines of criminals won't have guns. In fact, if you look at point 2 of my opening argument, I actually said that in 20% of DGU's, the criminal has a gun. Rebuttals 1. I was just showing that guns save more lives than they end, which you didn't even talk about. After all, 93% of those households believed someone would have died without a gun. It is likely that more than 6% are right, but it's almost impossible to prove. 1A. I was showing that they where accurate estimates. I assumed from your wording that you meant estimates as in they just guessed at how many DGU's there where a year. However, the 2,500,000-3,500,000 comes from a couple government surveys that showed that there'd be about 2,500,000-3,500,000 DGU's a year[3]. "Good. Let's keep it that way." Guns have always been available to criminals in the US, yet 3x more DGU's. "In response to that: [2]." Because karate is just as effective as a gun at self defense. The problem is, if it's good at self defense it's also dangerous. Guns are more dangerous, thus they are better at self defense. 1B. Guns are used in crimes. Yes, guns are used in crime. Here is the significant part you have repeatedly failed to address. Guns are used 3 times more for DGU's. Guns are dangerous. Guns are scary. But they are also 3 times more likely to be used for self defense than crime. You have repeatedly failed to address this. Ignoring something is not a good way to refute it. The reason I am doing this debate 4 times is that in 2 of the cases, my opponent forfeited. I made a argument and Cliff showed me why it was wrong, so I made a new and better argument. I've argued this twice now. About trinitrotoluene (big word alert!). That is dangerous, but I would not qualify it as a self defense weapon. It is more likely to be used in crime than in self defense. The only people who use explosives for self defense is Al Qaeda. In contrast, guns are used 3 times more for self defense than crime, while explosives are pretty much used solely for either war or terrorism. Law abiding citizens sometimes loiter/jaywalk?! Is this satire? Loitering and jay walking are a looooong ways from violent crime, and you know it. 1. You believe every human being in America owns a gun. Already shown this to be false. You committed the real assumption here. 2. You skipped 2 and went to 3, I believe Lol. 3. The sources said that American crime rates were "3.5 times" higher than England's. You said "English rates of violent crime were higher than the USA's in everything except murder and rape", according to stats taken 16 years ago. Yes, 16 year old statistics. American murder rates where 3.5 times higher, England's was higher in everything else other than rape. 4. 0.17 households believe something and you think that should effect government law Nope, just showing that guns most likely save lives. 5. You acknowledge most criminals don't use guns, yet you wish to make it possible that any criminal CAN use a gun. Already can in the US, yet guns are still used 3 times more in self defense. Yes, it does change the name of the crime. Would you prefer that all criminals got assault/rape/murder rather than attempted assault/attempted rape/attempted murder? I fail to see how protecting a victim doesn't matter. And I have shown that the criminal only has a gun 20% of the time during DGU's, not 100% of the time. Sometimes the criminal has a gun, but usually not. "The majority of the time, the criminal was not scared" is wrong for one simple fact. Not every criminal has known someone with a gun. In fact, 90% of the time the criminal finds out the victim has a gun, he runs away[4]. "As I have said, self defence is important and there are many other ways to defend one's self without a deadly weapon." Yes, but it is a lot less effective. "Wait, you're saying a criminal can attack without a gun, but a victim can't defend without a gun?" I'm saying that guns defend people 3 times more than they are used in crime. "I love how you mentioned "law abiding citizens" 3 times after saying that's not who you were implying would have a gun." I was saying that I didn't say criminals wouldn't have guns. "What this debate comes down to is logic v.s surveys [rhetoric vs facts] and cherry-picked statistics. My opponent's stats are flawed as I have demonstrated and hand-picked because he believes they are one-sided(they arn't), and I believe my logic is sound." You're starting to sound like Cliff.Stamp, except Cliff was right about me. Those statistics aren't cherry picked. I picked a fact that proved my case, which you failed to address. There wasn't any facts I chose to ignore. How are my facts flawed? There is 3 times more DGU's than gun crimes. That isn't flawed. Demonstrate how my facts are flawed. The main point of my case is that guns are used 3 times more for DGU's than crime. Here are my opponent's responses: "Say guns are used for protection 8,000 times a day. What my opponent says is "protection", but he avoids that what he is also saying is that there are 8,000 violent crimes perpetrated daily in America. Such an environment is not one which you should wish to have a large quantity of deadly weapons." Notice how this allows him to ignore that guns are use 3 times more for protection. He uses rhetoric to ignore the facts. "Yes, guns are used for self defence. They're also used for murder, rape, assault, extortion, mugging, robbery, theft " Which allows him to ignore that they're used 3 times more for self defense. "He has proven that guns have been used to intervene and stop criminal activities in progress. He has not proven and could not possibly prove that there would be more crimes of any type without guns." Like you don't want to protect people from crime. Like it'd be better that the 3 million had to be raped/assaulted. Ignore the facts. Also, I have proven that guns do prevent crime (not stop). Sources [1] http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov... [2] http://www.justfacts.com... [3] http://www.pulpless.com... [4] http://gunsafe.org...