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

You are very arrogant to think you won anything. Voters please choose whoever you want and don't be bullied by my opponent. You have given no solid evidence that banning handguns will cause any improvement. In fact, there is no way you could possibly show any evidence that banning handguns will make things better because it won't. As you said before drugs are outlawed yet you can still get drugs. Handguns will just go underground causing more crime. Your new point on accidental death is not accurate, again you're not listing your sources. I have had to research your "claims" on my own and they are all 10-20 years old. Banning handguns will only make things worse. You can not let people legally have something and take it away with no backlash. Look what happened with drugs. The War On Drugs cost this country billions and made drug use and drug smuggling a normal occurrence. Not only that, but it brings violence. If you are a gun owner you are responsible for that weapon. If a child obtains your firearm that is the owners responsibility no one else. A child could also run into a fireplace are we going to ban them as well? Your points are invalid when it comes to safety. A safe law abiding gun owner will not put their children at risk with their handgun. Many people own handguns and have never had any issues you are claiming. There is absolutely no proof that banning handguns will lower the amount of suicide in the US. Protection is a big part of this as well. If someone breaks into a house and has a gun, the victim is supposed to lay down and take it? What banning handguns will do is give criminals an advantage over the average citizen. Taking Americans rights away never works to anyone's advantage. Banning or making something illegal does not get rid of the problem, it brings forth added problems. Banning costs taxpayers millions if not billions. It will even bring about more smuggling from places like Mexico and South America. The War On Drugs did not work. What makes you think the war on handguns will? There is no reason to change the US Constitution over handguns. Crime and homicide have improved and 60% of legal gun owners own guns for protection while the remaining 40% own guns for hunting use. How is this a problem? Out of 6.2 million deaths, only 5k were related to handguns in 2013. It sounds like natural selection to me. Next my opponent will want to ban food with any fat because it causes heart attacks, which is the leading cause of death in the United States. Actual statistics from countries that have banned handguns. .. .. United Kingdom: The UK enacted its handgun ban in 1996. From 1990 until the ban was enacted, the homicide rate fluctuated between 10.9 and 13 homicides per million. After the ban was enacted, homicides trended up until they reached a peak of 18.0 in 2003. Since 2003, which incidentally was about the time the British government flooded the country with 20,000 more cops, the homicide rate has fallen to 11.1 in 2010. In other words, the 15-year experiment in a handgun ban has achieved absolutely nothing. Ireland: Ireland banned firearms in 1972. Ireland"s homicide rate was fairly static going all the way back to 1945. In that period, it fluctuated between 0.1 and 0.6 per 100,000 people. Immediately after the ban, the murder rate shot up to 1.6 per 100,000 people in 1975. It then dropped back down to 0.4. It has trended up, reaching 1.4 in 2007. Australia: Australia enacted its gun ban in 1996. Murders have basically run flat, seeing only a small spike after the ban and then returning almost immediately to pre-ban numbers. It is currently trending down but is within the fluctuations exhibited in other nations. In conclusion I am (Con) against banning handguns, there is no evidence that banning them will solve any issues my opponent listed during this debate. Bad people will always have guns, good people should always be able to protect themselves from the bad. Any law abiding citizen that has a registered handgun is not the problem anyway. It's the criminals that are the problem. .. Oh, I know let's ban criminals.