The USA should abolish all firearms

Before I respond to your arguments, I would like to clear up any misconceptions over how new legislation would work. This new legislation is not as simple as one individual deciding whether someone has a good reason to own a gun. There are multiple checks and balances which would be used in order to determine a reasonable case for gun ownership. This system exists and works successfully in many European countries where certain individuals can own guns. My proposal could easily be enacted and would be functional. Now I really want to focus on the concept of the 2nd amendment itself. Saying that the 2nd amendment "must be upheld" without an explanation as to why is completely irrational. As I explained, the 2nd amendment had a historical context of immense political instability however it is not relevant for modern society. I also described that the constitution is not sacre-saint. The constitution is not like the 10 commandments. It has been amended so many times. In fact, even amendments to it have been repealed like the 18th amendment. If there is no relevancy to the 2nd amendment then it makes no sense to preserve it. I need an explanation as to why the 2nd amendment is needed in today's context not just a catchy sound-bite of "it's my right". To my mind (and to many other progressive Americans), the 2nd amendment is more of a privilege than a right. Next, although to an extent, the world seems to be becoming more at risk of war, this is a complete exaggeration. Arguably, all countries are subject to this threat just like the USA. However, most other countries use their armed forces and not their civilians to defend the country in the enormous unlikelihood of an attack on their soil. The reality is that the USA is not going to be invaded and even if it was armed civilians are not going to be able to hold off an invasion. Furthermore, it is extremely unlikely, considering the nature of the American system, that a dictator will seize power. What is more likely is that hundreds of kids will die in school shootings in the years to come. Also, how on earth would civilians stop a dictator? Do civilians have tanks? Do civilians have artillery, warships, chemical weapons, fighter aircraft or nuclear weapons? I find the idea that a armed militia of American civilians with rifles could hold off the US armed forces. I do find it likely though that those same weapons could kill thousands of innocent people every year. If people want personal safety they should call the police. Furthermore, they will not need guns anyway since the attackers would not be able to get guns in the first place. In the unlikelihood that someone attacks them with a gun (which in all other countries is very unlikely), most people run away even if they are armed. Gun attacks are terrifying and most people do not fight back. This was certainly true in the case of the recent shooting in Florida. The next big point that needs to be tackled is the idea that guns are not what is causing gun deaths. Guns are directly responsible for the deaths of many more people as they are efficient killing machines. Compared to things like blunt objects guns kill far more people at a faster rate. On that basis, it makes sense to ban something which results in killing many more people. Furthermore, as I have already described in great length, blunt objects and cars have so many practical uses. Whereas, guns provide little practical use and thus when you consider the harm that they do to our society it makes sense to ban something which doesn't have enough usefulness to justify its existence. Now, of course evil people are the true cause of murders due to gun violence and of course mental health is the main cause. However, fighting these problems, although definitely a noble and good thing to do, does not go far enough to stop killings. If the US government could cure all mentally ill people of their problems and effectively deal with all people with bad intentions then I would absolutely advocate for the right of all Americans to own guns since there would be no dangerous people to use them. However, this is a totally unachievable goal. You cannot cure all evil people - this is an impossible goal. Thus, alternative ways need to be considered in order to stop the slaughter of so many innocent Americans. Guns undeniably cause more deaths because of guns and this is totally supported by the evidence which I cited in my previous response. Therefore, banning guns is the way to achieve our goal of making America a safer and less murderous country. Since, as I have explained, guns serve little value to ordinary people and they are actually rarely used to fight crime, banning them is reasonable as they are so unnecessary. This is not the same for cars. If cars were banned (of course people could walk) our economy would massively suffer and our lives would become much more impractical and difficult therefore, they are essential to our daily lives and so depriving us of such important things is a step too far. Although, maybe one day, if public transport is good enough and considering the damage to the environment that cars do, cars could rightly be abolished. Now onto the black market. To equate an underground gun market to an illegal drugs market is to make an extremely disingenuous argument. There are huge distinctions which need to be made. Firstly, drugs are highly addictive whereas there are no addictions to shooting guns. Therefore, in the event of abolishing guns, one would not find millions of gun-addicts rushing to their local dealer to purchase 1kg of ammunition to feed their habit. It is simply not the same situation. To justify my claim that the black market will be minute, I will provide you some examples of countries who have a model of gun control that I would advocate for the USA. In the UK, you are banned from buying any firearms unless, as I have advocated, you have a very good reason for owning it (i.e. for your job such as a livestock farmer or a vet). In the UK, there is a black market for guns. However, most gangs are not powerful enough to obtain firearms and so instead use knives and other weapons (unsurprisingly they end up killing fewer people with these less deadly weapons). Some very dangerous gangs do have access to these weapons and carry handguns and sometimes semi-automatic rifles. The gun homicide rate in England and Wales is about one for every 1 million people, according to the Geneva Declaration of Armed Violence and Development, a multinational organization based in Switzerland.After a mass shooting at a school in 1996, the British government pursued legislative bans on assault rifles and handguns and tightened background checks for other types of firearms. As of 2013, a total of 200,000 guns and 700 tons of ammunition were taken off British streets. Military-style weapons and most handguns were banned. Moreover, the black market is very small. There are so many examples of this from around the world. What is the same everywhere is that when guns are banned, there are (shockingly) less guns - which (amazingly) leads to fewer people dying. The idea of a huge black market being worse than the status quo is completely false and has absolutely no statistical based evidence for it. Trust in the countless evidence from all around the world that a black market would exist but most importantly it would be very, very small. Crucially, the black market would be unfortunate but allowable since the level of gun violence now is so much worse. So, to conclude: the 2nd amendment is not untouchable - it is a fallible and repealable right which, considering its irrelevance in today's society, can be and should be repealed and replaced with new and reasonable legislation. Our rights do not come from nowhere - they have logical reasons for their existence and thus, if those arguments no longer stack up, those "rights" (or should we really say privileges) can and should be removed. Secondly, guns allow evil and ill people to kill people in much faster and more devastating ways and thus are unique in their wholly violent use. Guns are furthermore not essential to our human existence. I would ban cars if you could argue that cars are so useless (like guns) that there is a good reason to ban them; but cars have massive practical uses. This is not a contradiction. Therefore, banning guns does reduce gun deaths and is reasonable. Finally, a black market in guns would exist but it would be small according to all the evidence that we can see from other countries. Most normal gun users would not be able to get guns and thus only very serious groups would have guns. But guess what; serious criminals already have guns so, what is the difference? Overall less people will have guns and thus less people will die. I only have to convince you of 2 things: 1) Guns do not serve a purpose, significant enough, to warrant their existence when they conflict with the right of our people to live in a safe society. 2) When we ban guns less people will die I believe I have sufficiently explained and justified both of these premises. I have, thus, a strong inductive argument for banning these useless murder-machines. At the end of the day, I do not have a problem with a responsible and good American owning a gun. But when the privilege of that individual to own a gun for their own needs conflicts with the lives of children, heartbreakingly murdered in places which should be considered safe, I am absolutely unapologetic for my firm belief that I am willing to infringe upon the right of that person to save the right of many other people to their own lives. I don't want to see a country, so amazing and great in so many ways, being the same country in which almost every year we wake up to another story of a preventable mass shooting. I don't want anyone to have to wake up to that anymore. I want change. I dearly hope I can convince at least one person of this.