In the United States, private ownership of handguns ought to be banned.

Rebuttal. famousdebater's argument depends on Moral Realism. This is the contention that there are moral facts. Were there such things as moral facts, we should be compelled to act upon them. This is a specious argument - as shown by David Hume, among many others. The is-ought problem, as articulated by Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume (1711-76), states that many writers make claims about what 'ought' to be on the basis of statements about what 'is.' Hume found that there seems to be a significant difference between positive statements (about what is) and prescriptive or normative statements (about what ought to be), and that it is not obvious how one can coherently move from descriptive statements to prescriptive ones. The is-ought problem is also known as Hume's law, or Hume's guillotine. From Is and Ought. "According to the dominant twentieth-century interpretation, Hume says here that no ought-judgment may be correctly inferred from a set of premises expressed only in terms of is, and the vulgar systems of morality commit this logical fallacy. This is usually thought to mean something much more general: that no ethical or indeed evaluative conclusion whatsoever may be validly inferred from any set of purely factual premises." From Perhaps sensing the difficulty of his position, famousdebater raised the question of moral realism, and adduced the work of Micheal Huemer, Professor in Philosophy at the prestigious University of Colorado Boulder. (Where Mork landed in his giant egg!) No doubt, it is in response to David Hume's observation, that Huemer devised his ontological argument for moral realism. (1) The probabilistic reasons principle (2) If we know that action X is objectively wrong, then we get a reason to not perform action X to be moral (3) Even if we don't know that action X is objectively wrong, it doesn't provide us a reason to *do* action X (4) There is some non-zero probability that moral realism is true (i.e. moral realism is possible) (5) It follows that, in order to not risk X being objectively wrong, we ought not to do action X (6) Also, we have a reason to avoid performing action X The fault in Huemer's argument is direct contradiction of Hume's Law - at step 4, with the unsubstantiated assertion that there is some non-zero probability that moral realism is true; when to the contrary, there is an overwhelming weight of argument that shows it cannot be true. On this basis, it's possible to simply dismiss the facts adduced by famousdebater in support of his argument; but I think that would be unfair - not least because, we frequently break Hume's Law, by arguing because of A, B and C - we ought to do D. Bearing in mind it is not a fact, nor logically necessary that we ought to do D - let us now consider famousdebater's A, B, and C - and then we will consider his D, his plan for 'what we ought to do.' The Murder Rate. Directing attention to the first graph posted by famousdebater (at this point he has only presented one graph, but may or may not present more in round two) we see the terrifying statistics on the murder rate in the US. Or do we? It's certainly an impressive looking graph - but what does it actually tell us? You will have to use the slider at the bottom of the page to see the statistic for the US - in red, souring above that of almost every other country in the developed world - to a staggering 3.2 deaths per 100,000 people. To put this in perspective, there are 16.2 deaths from flu, 37.0 deaths from accidents, and 179.8 deaths per 100,00 people from heart disease. From This has the startling implication that you would save upto five times more lives by requiring people carry a handkerchief, than you would banning them from owning guns! The Plan. Basically, famousdebater's plan is to proceed with such glacial caution no one notices that their Second Amendment Rights are being stripped away. I'm not an American, but I understand the National Rifle Association is somewhat sensitive about the issue. Further, given that electoral terms are limited to five years - this idea, (I cannot keep calling it a plan when it's not a plan) is problematic in that - either the government publishes its so-called plan, or keeps it a secret from 'We, the people.' Recall if you will, from the statistics presented in my opening argument - that 47% of US household own a gun - and a good proportion of them speak of 'prising it from my cold dead hands.' Because you couldn't find a politician in the world who'd ignore his electoral interest - in favour of a philosophically weak argument for moral fact, this so-called plan would have to be a secret plan, or conspiracy across no less than 6 terms of government. It cannot be ignored that this so-called plan lacks any detail about who's guns would be taken away when, or how the 310 million guns in circulation would be accounted for and confiscated. It says nothing about the 55,000 licensed dealers in the US, or the $30bn worth of trade. It says nothing about exemptions - for lions and bears that may be encountered, roaming free in the US. Nor does it say anything about criminality - and the frequent observation that taking guns from law abiding citizens would do nothing to disarm criminals. Further, assuming we accepted that 3.2 deaths per 100,000 people constitutes a moral fact, that is, assuming we ignore Hume's Law, and accept it is a fact we are compelled to act - how can it be moral to take 30 years to take action? Clearly, there are competing imperatives famousdebater neither acknowledges or solves; and if there are competing imperatives - there can be no moral fact. It's like saying A, B and C - compel action D, while ignoring E, F, G, H....and so on long past Z. It is not a moral fact, nor even a very compelling case. I consider the argument presented by famousdebater comprehensively rebutted.