Gun rights.

What I find funny is that basically everything you argued was copy paste but just because not all fro same link I guess not plagiarised to be considered forfeit. I only point this out because you raise this in your round 1 conditions. Before I begin my constructive, I shall rebut most of my opponent's points. Firstly, we are discussing gun rights in the scenario whereby the law is successfully carried out (the feasibility should not be taken into consideration as you can't judge whether or not gun rights are good or bad based on failed implementation of it). Secondly, my opponent say that armed robberies rose by 51%. What is key here is that they were armed (almost definitely with a gun) and using this data only proves that no civilian should be allowed a gun at all. There is no point justifying one's right to guns by saying that when they are banned, people illegally use guns to kill. This is the reason people shouldn't be allowed guns in the first place! The third point raised states that it is probably because the government itself was shifting out of corruption that the shift offered opportunity to make new laws, such as gun crime, which they seemed beneficial to society. However, there is no proof that the gun rights actually assisted towards lowering of government corruption, the law being implemented happened to be at the same time as the government felt change was necessary, they didn't suddenly stop corruption DUE TO gun rights. It was two simultaneous events occurring, not one due to the other. The fourth contention doesn't count as my opponent simply repeated the second. Now for my constructive. First of all, The problem with guns is fairly straightforward: they make it easy to kill or injure a person. In Jeffrey A. Roth's Firearms and Violence[1], he points out the obvious dangers: Approximately 60% of all murder victims in the United States in 1989 (about 12,000 people) were killed with firearms. According to estimates, firearm attacks injured another 70,000 victims, some of whom were left permanently disabled. In 1985 (the latest year for which data are available), the cost of shootings--either by others, through self-inflicted wounds, or in accidents--was estimated to be more than $14 billion nationwide for medical care, long-term disability, and premature death. In robberies and assaults, victims are far more likely to die when the perpetrator is armed with a gun than when he or she has another weapon or is unarmed. Self-defense is commonly cited as a reason to own a gun. This is the explanation given by 20% of all gun owners and 40% of all handgun owners contacted for a household survey conducted in 1979. [1] On the other hand, research has shown that a gun kept in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a member of the household, or friend, than an intruder.[2] The use of a firearm to resist a violent assault actually increases the victim's risk of injury and death.[3] There may be some self-defense benefit: victims who defended themselves with guns were less likely to report being injured than those who either defended themselves by other means or took no self-protective measures at all. Thus, while 33% of all surviving robbery victims were injured, only 25% of those who offered no resistance and 17% of those who defended themselves with guns were injured. For surviving assault victims, the corresponding injury rates were, respectively, 30%, 27%, and 12%.[4] However,these statistics are an insufficient basis for the personal decision whether or not to obtain a gun for self-protection.... First, the decision involves a trade-off between the risks of gun accidents and violent victimization. Second, it is not entirely clear that the relatively few robberies and assaults in which victims defended themselves with guns are typical of these types of crimes and that the lower injury rates resulted from the self-defense action rather than some other factor. Perhaps offenders lost the advantage of surprise, which allowed victims not only to deploy their guns but also to take other evasive action.[5] Research by Dr. Arthur Kellerman has shown that keeping a gun in the home carries a murder risk 2.7 times greater than not keeping one. That is, excluding many other factors such as previous history of violence, class, race, etc., a household with a gun is 2.7 times more likely to experience a murder than a household without one, even while there was no significant increase in the risk of non-gun homicides![5] Obviously, there is a problem with criminals having access to guns, which is why so many people feel they, too, need a gun for self-defense. But this is a vicious cycle: FBI Crime Reports sources indicate that there are about 340,000 reported firearms thefts every year. Those guns, the overwhelming amount of which were originally manufactured and purchased legally, and now in the hands of criminals. Thus, the old credo "when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" is silly. What happens is many guns bought legally are sold or stolen, and can then be used for crime. If those 340,000 guns were never sold or owned in the first place, that would be 340,000 less guns in the hands of criminals every year. Part of the reason there are so many guns on the street in the hands of criminals is precisely because so many are sold legally. Certainly, there will always be a way to obtain a gun illegally. But if obtaining a gun legally is extremely difficult, the price of illegal guns goes way up, and availability goes way down. Thus, it is much more difficult for criminals to obtain guns. Sources: [1] NIJ Research in Brief, February 1994, found at http://sun.soci.niu.edu... [2] Arthur Kellermann and Donald Reay. "Protection or Peril? An Analysis of Firearm Related Deaths in the Home." The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 314, no. 24, June 1986, pp. 1557-60. [3] FE Zimring, Firearms, violence, and public policy, Scientific American, vol. 265, 1991, p. 48 [4] Kleck, Gary, "Crime Control through the Private Use of Armed Force," Social Forces, 35 (1988):1-22. [5] Arthur Kellermann et. al., "Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home," The New England Journal of Medicine, October 7, 1993, pp. 1084-1091