On balance, a ban on civilian firearm ownership would be beneficial to the United States

Pro's only case here is that gun violence relates to ecomonies (shifting away from the actual guns) and that people aren't trained enough for guns. Premise I: Burden of Proof - Source Reliability. This claim is unfounded and unsupportable. I needed to prove that statistics show that gun ownership doesn't correlate with more violence and that gun bans don't work. I have provided strong statistical evidence of both, and sourced both with enough that they can be fully replicated within minutes. Pro, however, has some sourcing issues I didn’t have the character limit to point out last round. The first issue being that many of Pro’s sources can not be checked or reviewed. His sources, specifically source 2, has no specific methodology mentioned. It mentions alot of other studies, but not what studies they are, or what their methods were. There is no means of checking the methods used. Another issue was source 1, which tested the top nations, but left out a major variable… It was the 1980s and early 1990s. The time was known internationally as a time of unquestionable violence (1). To include this study as relevant and an important variable in Pro’s case is no better than claiming that too many people are killed by war every year, using death tolls from 1940-1045 as your only evidence. Using a measurement from a time of extremes is fallacious when judging the normal average. The study, as well as another study in that group, are from a time that can not be used to accurately judge the effects of firearms in normal circumstances. The issue with this source 3 is that it measures homicide across only three years. Three years do not help to account for the effects of decreasing or increasing ownership of firearms over time. I used 2 years (2010 and 2011) in my last round to prove that pro’s stats weren’t absolute, and are challengeable, to say the least, but I will account for the long term, as well as the effects of shifting ownerships in Premise II. On a note, my methods can be seen, and tested, and replicated. Pro’s can not. And the source of each stat used in my study is available, Pro’s is not. The last source to be criticized is Pro’s femicide study, which tests only 220 proxies, and 343 abused control women… Across 11 cities. At 20 proxies and 31 women each city. This allows for no true understanding of any given city’s scenario. Had it been 220 and 343 examples from each, we’d have a more well-rounded study, but this study is too far stretched across too few examples. Pro's R3 sources aren't much better, including ThinkProgress and Motherjones. Pro wants voters to pick his sources, but until R3, his sources couldn't be read or checked, and his R3 sources include the two most bias sources in the debate. While I replied this one time for the sake of refutting an attack (least I drop it), it should be noted that attacking my sources (which included 2 .gov websites and disastercenter.com [who sourced back to the FBI site]) was cowardly and unwarranted. 1) http://tinyurl.com... (p.g. 2.) 2) All mentioned sources are in Pro’s R2 ending. Premise II: The Long-Term correlation. I’ve compiled a list of the past 54 years (3, 4, 5). As the data shows, Gun Ownership doesn’t particularly seem to correlate with the violent crime rate. The only time when it strongly correlates is in the 80s and early 90s, when violence rose to unnatural proportions. This correlation, however, is likely because gun ownership increased as a response to violent crimes. This is seen as gun rates actually went down when crime rates rose, and didn’t increase until afterwards. The only correlation that promotes Pro’s case is during 1983 and 1993, but seeing as gun ownership spiked years after violent crimes begin dropping in 1993, it’s obvious that gun rates weren’t responsible for the increase in crime, or crime would have peaked when gun ownership peaked, not years before. We see that before and after the infamous spike in violence (which was an extreme era, and can't be used to determine the norm), gun ownership didn’t relate to violence at all. If Pro’s case were accurate, than after the year 2000, violence should have respiked. During the year 2011, gun ownership was equal to 1980, the very year that violent crimes were at their peak. The same for Assault Crimes, where the only correlation exists during the 1980-1990 period. However, this time we see that the spike in gun ownership correlates with the spike in assault afterwards, implying, once again, that it’s was a response to the spike in assaults. The unorthodox 1980s and 1990s aside (reread Premise I if you don’t understand), guns do not correlate with violent crimes. Regarding poverty and unemployment. While this might be true in nations with a history of high violence and bad governments, it doesn't apply properally in the US. If it had, the year 2001 - 2010 would have the highest violent crime rates in the past 54 years. Instead, they are among the most peaceful years since the 60s. Pro's claim doesn't stand here. Jamaica, again, is evidence that Pro's claim is wrong. Jamaica's murder rate has, since the gun ban, gone up almost every year. It's GDP has gone up almost every year (in Real Growth and PPP.) It's unemployment has gone done nearly a third since 1998. It's poverty is literally half of what it was in 1992. Economically, the country is in a much better shape since the 1990's, and yet the murder rate has only ever increased the whole time. Pro's case does not hold up to the real world(6). Washington DC and Chicago's murder rates began rising after the Gun Ban, not the recession. If the economic downturn was to blame, the two cities would have seen a large increase in violent crime the the 2000's. DC saw a decrease (although still lagging further and further behind the nation). Pro's claim also doesn't deal with Britain and Ireland. His claim doesn't cover them, and given the 2001-current recession, doesn't truly cover the US either, or Jamaica given Jamaica's economy and murder-rate doesn't support pro's claim (while the rising murder rate proves mine.)Pro tried shifting from "Guns cause crime" (which I debunked with numerous charts and graphs) to "Economies cause crime" (which I also debunked.) If economies cause crime, than guns aren't the problem. 3) http://tinyurl.com... 4) http://tinyurl.com... 5) http://tinyurl.com... 6) http://tinyurl.com... Premise III: General Objection: Pro's main case here seems to be that civilians aren't trained enough for guns. This isn't a gun ban issue, but a training-requirement issue. Pro's claim supports using an extreme proposal in place of the more realistic, more proper, less expensive, more appropriate option. Following Pro’s logic, many could also claim banning voting and the use of credit, instead of using education to fix the problem. It seems a bit unreasonable to want someone to be in extreme danger, rather than to go too far in self defense. Putting the life of the attacker before that of the victim is unrealistic. Pro's case is a matter of picking a worse bad over a better bad, for the sake of the bad guy. Pro brings up Premise II. It relates to the claim he made in R2; ...(i.e. "guns don't kill people, people kill people"), but this is patently false... - Pro Pro made the case into a full argument in a prior debate, so it was only rational to refute it before it found a place here. Conclusion: I have shown, regardless of Pro's claim, strong evidence that Gun Bans have backfired, and that pro's economic claims aren’t supported by reality. I have also shown that Gun Ownerships do not correlate with violent crime rates. And I have done all this with straightforward numbers that can be replicated by anyone who wants to see for themselves, while Pro's R2 claims have no reviewable sources that stand to scrutiny. And his economic numbers and claims in R3 don't match reality. I have proven with observable numbers and stats that Pro’s claim stands no ground. A Gun Ban would not be benefical.