Any gun other than pistols should not be sold to citizens.

Thanks, Pro. Since my opponent is the one advocating a change in the status quo, I'll keep my case short for now as he has the burden of proof. I'll also assume given his statements in R1 that this debate is US specific. I'll also assume a ban on these weapons is at the federal level so that it applies to the entire country. I. If any gun ought to be banned, it is handguns. The resolution is absurd--if my opponent wants to mitigate violence, he's choosing the wrong guns to ban. Even if I were to concede that gun control works to mitigate violence and should be done (I don't), the resolution is still negated because we should ban handguns. Indeed, according to the FBI[1], handguns have consistently accounted for about six to seven times more homicides than shotguns, rifles, and "other guns" combined. Handguns are the weapon of choice for criminals because they are easy to conceal. Thus, if you buy all of the arguments my opponent makes about gun control being good, negate the resolution and ban handguns. Affirming the resolution would ban an antique musket while allowing the weapon type that is used for approximately half of all homicides in the United States. II. Second amendmentMy opponent argues that "you would never have to defend yourself against your own government.". First, the 20th century disagrees. Indeed, Rummel estimates that in the 20th century alone 262,000,000 people were victims of democide[2]. The idea that we have nothing to fear from the government is manifestly absurd and empirically denied, historically. Moreover, the Supreme Court ruled in DC v. Heller[3] that the second amendment allows citizens personal ownership of weapons. Thus to affirm the resolution is to throw away the legitimacy of the government--the state cannot make broad, sweeping bans on arbitrary classes of weapons. Keep in mind as well that it's incredibly unlikely that states would accept a federal mandate to ban the sale of all weapons other than handguns. At a time where polarization in the United States is at an all time high since reconstruction, we can't afford to pass a law the majority of states simply would not accept. Even in liberal California, democratic Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill that would have banned all semi automatic rifles in the state for being too restrictive[4]--banning *all* long guns would be considered way too invasive by almost everyone. The federal government would become a laughingstock as the law was ignored, or the law would cause a new nullification crisis and possibly a second civil war. Widespread possession of firearms by civilians also deters foreign invasion. When it became clear the United States was going to intervene in the First World War, Germany attempted to convince Mexico to invade the United States to tie up the US military from helping our allies in France. Mexico established a military commission to determine if the invasion was feasible, and one of the reasons they decided against it was because[5]: "Even if by some chance Mexico had the military means to win the conflict with the U.S. and retake the area in question, Mexico would have had severe difficulty accommodating the large, primarily English-speaking population who were well supplied with guns and ammunition." III. More guns, less crimeThere are good reasons to believe that gun ownership deters crime. Indeed, Examiner reports[6] that 57% of felons surveyed agreed that criminals feared a run in with armed civilians more than they did running into the police. Moreover over a third (34%) of these felons said they personally had been “scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim”. Statistics bear this out. According to John Lotte, when states issued concealed carry permits[7]: "Our findings are dramatic. Our most conservative estimates show that by adopting shall-issue laws, states reduced murders by 8.5%, rapes by 5%, aggravated assaults by 7% and robbery by 3%. If those states that did not permit concealed handgun in 1992 had permitted them back then, citizens would have been spared approximately 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, 60,000 aggravated assaults and 12,000 robberies. To put it even more simply: Criminals, we found, respond rationally to deterrence threats." Recent statistics bear this out as well. During the Obama presidency, gun sales have absolutely soared and violent crime has decreased. According to the Wall Street Journal[8]: " In the first six months of 2013, murders fell by nearly 7 percent, compared with the same period in 2012. Aggravated assaults fell by 6.6 percent, and robberies are down 1.8 percent. 'All of the offenses in the violent crime category—murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault, and robbery—showed decreases when data from the first six months of 2013 were compared with data from the first six months of 2012,' according to the FBI. Overall, violent crime in the U.S. fell by 5.4 percent. Burglaries, larceny and auto thefts also decreased. The left likes to link violent crime to the proliferation of guns in the country, so it's worth noting that the crime reductions described in the FBI report correlate with a steady increase in firearm sales. 'Gun records checks, fueled by a post-Newtown boom of gun sales, hit a new high in 2013, and industry analysts expect ammunition to be the big seller this year as consumers catch up to all of those firearms purchases,' reported the Washington Times last month. 'More than 21 million applications were run through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System last year, marking nearly an 8 percent increase and the 11th straight year that the number has risen.'" That's all for now. The resolution is negated. Sources:1. http://www.fbi.gov...2. https://www.hawaii.edu...3. http://www.oyez.org...4. http://www.washingtonpost.com...5. http://en.wikipedia.org...6. http://www.examiner.com...7. http://online.wsj.com...8. http://online.wsj.com...