Banning guns is a bad idea

By the way....Welcome to Debate.org! :) I noticed you were new. Now let's begin. "in a safe locked up in a closet. Guns save lives.com has over a thousand stories of times people have defended them selves with guns" They will be safely locked in a closet, where you have to find your key, quietly unlock the safe, pull out and load your gun before trying to find your opponent. I see your point though. I checked out your website, and that is truly inspiring BUT the negatives still outweigh the positives. As mentioned, even though America has by the far the most guns, it has by far the most gun-violence. A study showed that situations like these are very rare and even in those which do happen, only 0.00853% of the time leads to the attacker dying. This means that almost all the gun-violence deaths are the attacker killing someone, not the defender successfully defending himself. Studies have also shown that, surprisingly, gun ownership is on a slow decline. Even though it is declining, criminal attempts have also decreased by a whopping 30%-40%. This correlation suggests that more guns do not mean less crime and supports my previous claim that, in fact, more guns means more gun violence and death. http://www.cnn.com... http://www.cnn.com... "I understand that a gun can kill more people than a brick or knife but can't gas and matches should we ban them." No we shouldn't because people typically do not use matches and gas as a weapon. Instead, they decide to guy guns instead of gas and matches because using a gun to kill someone is a much more efficient way. "you should go through at least one back round check and it probably would be a good idea to check everyone the person loves with. A law obeying citizen should be able to own one as long as it's not a threat to anyone else." I agree, background checks should be put in place but authorities don't know who "law obeying" citizens are. For example, to get a car you must go through a driving test right? Yet people still make mistakes by maybe driving angrily or driving drunk. The same sort of things may happen even to "law obeying" gun owners, meaning simply doing background checks is not enough. "if that person really wanted a gun he would be able to get one no matter what" The may be true, but there are many factors in his way. Not only would he be much more hesitant, but getting a gun illegally (just like getting meth illegally) would not be an easy, quick process. Illegal guns would be sold for a high price and in the process of finding communications, signing contracts, buying the gun, and keeping it out of sight the chances of the criminal being found and jailed are high. There would be a lot of steps to try to get a gun illegally, and all of them are an opportunity to get caught. "there are plenty of times people defend them selves from animals (guns save lives.com)" There may be, but as mentioned above, negatives outweigh the positives. Plus, many times the people most likely provoked the animal, whatever it may be. Animals don't usually attack humans for no apparent reason. "the person could shoot the shooter right away." Yes, the people who are trying to control the riot may be able to fire a couple shots before they are overwhelmed by an angry mass of people with guns. The destruction and death count of a highly armed riot would be enormous. Take a look at recent Ukraine for example. As soon as they angry mobs started getting weapons, it pretty much turned into a civil war. "I understand that more gun equals more gun crime but clearly more guns does not equal more crime and less guns does not equal more crime over all" That was a confusing sentence. More guns means more crime, as shown by the data I gave. In specific examples (like Chicago as you mentioned), guns may be better, but on a national and global scale, the countries with more guns generally have more violence. "in many where the racist who rape you in an ally or the their who breaks into your house doesn't have a gun it's best to have one." Yes, if the defender has a gun, the rapist may not be so keen to do what he came for, BUT if guns are allowed, the rapist may have a gun as well. That does not improve the situation at all. Plus, there are many other methods of defending yourself other than pulling out a firearm, from martial arts to knives. You may compare guns to cars and other things that cause deaths (like gas and matches that you mentioned above) but the comparison is faulted because in our world, cars are pretty much necessary. Guns are not.