The United States has a moral obligation to ban guns.

Apologies in advance; I am not well-versed with the structure and style of Lincoln-Douglas debates. Hopefully you will be fine with me simply responding to your arguments one by one.Contrary to your statement, the people of the United States have a moral obligation to defend and uphold gun rights.I will define moral as that which is conducive to the life of a rational, productive human being -- as such, that which is good, or moral, provides positive value to human life, and that which is evil threatens the basic requirements of human life. This is self-evident as morality provides a set of values necessary for life -- and living to the fullest extent is the ultimate purpose of morality. Further, I will define rights as "freedoms protecting an individual's right to choose a given course of action." As such, the fundamental purpose of a right is to uphold the requirements of every individual's proper survival.As such, individuals must have a right to uphold their life through the use of reason, as opposed to coercion and force. Put simply, coercion is based on the use of fear -- a coercer violently seizes property from another man if he fails to comply with the coercer.A coercer exits the realm of reason and voluntary trade, threatening the lives of rational, law-abiding citizens. As such, others have a right to use force against this coercer in order to uphold their own lives -- every individual has a fundamental right to self-defense.It follows that if an individual has the right to use retaliatory force to preserve his own life, he must have the right to choose the optimal means of doing so. By restricting gun ownership, the government essentially infringes upon individuals' right to choose the best means of defending their life -- and this is profoundly immoral.Now that I have defined these fundamental terms, I will address your arguments.First, you claim that guns promote domestic violence, and violence in general. This claim is based on a kernel of truth -- guns are a means to an end: the harm of another individual. But harming others is not inherently immoral; as I have shown above, harming others in retaliation is perfectly justifiable. Furthermore, the suppression of gun rights, beyond being fundamentally immoral, does nothing to inhibit violence in the long run. Violent criminals, by definition, abstain from following the law. As such, a ban on guns or any other restriction on gun rights will not be obeyed by criminals truly bent upon destruction -- as is easily shown by the rise of homemade weapons, the massive illegal arms trade, and the black market for weapons. For instance, after a 1996 ban on handguns in the UK, gun crime more than doubled (http://www.telegraph.co.uk...). A ban on guns does, however, violate the rights of law-abiding, innocent citizens. By stopping individuals from defending themselves to the fullest extent, we leave them completely vulnerable to the actions of violent, ruthless criminals. This is inexcusable and undoubtedly immoral.Second, you claim that guns assist suicide. This relationship is not consistent and definite -- and there most certainly is not a causal relationship between gun ownership and suicide. A 2007 analysis (http://www.law.harvard.edu...) of international evidence found that "there is simply no relationship evident between the extent of suicide and the extent of gun ownership." They provide ample evidence for this claim: "Sweden, with over twice as much gun ownership as neighboring Germany and a third more gun suicide, nevertheless has the lower overall suicide rate. Greece has nearly three times more gun ownership than the Czech Republic and somewhat more gun suicide, yet the overall Czech suicide rate is over 175% higher than the Greek rate. Spain has over 12 times more gun ownership than Poland, yet the latter's overall suicide rate is more than double the former’s. Tragically, Finland has over 14 times more gun ownership than neighboring Estonia, and a great deal more gunR08;related suicide. Estonia, however, turns out to have a much higher suicide rate than Finland overall." Furthremore, as Jacob Sullum writes, "Japan, with a gun ownership rate of 0.6 per 100 people, compared to 88.8 in the United States, has a suicide rate nearly twice as high as high. China and South Korea likewise have much lower rates of civilian gun ownership but much higher rates of suicide. The relationship between gun ownership and suicide clearly is neither consistent nor straightforward."Clearly, there is nearly no relationship between gun ownership and suicide -- and thus, this argument is no justification for the violation of gun rights.