Banning all firearms in the US would be detrimental to society

Thanks to Pro for the debate. I'm a bit confused by Pro's disorganized rebuttals, so I'm just going to address each of the individual points he brought up one by one. .. Re: Ineffectual Gun ControlPro seems to completely ignore the distinction I made between a gun ban and the gun control laws I criticized. Like I already extensively clarified, current gun control laws are ineffective due to the loop-hole which exempts private dealings, the means through which the vast majority of guns used in crime are obtained. A gun ban avoids this weakness by virtually eliminating the country's total supply of guns, thereby making it nearly impossible for the average criminally-inclined person to obtain a gun. So no, Pro's strategy does not work; my attacks on current gun control laws do not apply to a gun ban due to the fundamental differences between the two. Re: Self-DefenseI never made the claim that not a single American has ever successfully used a gun for self-defense. .. I argued that guns are used 4 times more often in violent crime than they are in self-defense, and therefore, based on a utilitarian calculation, they are clearly a net detriment to society. Re: Gun-Free ZonesObviously if someone wants to do a mass-shooting, they'll target a place where the victims are less likely to fight back. However, this has no bearing on the efficacy of a gun ban because if guns are banned, the criminals won't have guns either. Local gun-free zones cannot stop someone on the outside from bringing in a gun and using it to cause harm to the unarmed victims. On the other hand, making the entire country a gun-free zone (i. e. implementing a gun ban) *does* prevent outsiders from doing so (for the most part) because we have established structures for border security. Moreover, as I've already observed, our closest neighbors (Canada and Mexico) have very few gun manufacturers of their own, so guns would have to be illegally imported from more distant places; this, along with how risky the smuggling in general is, would undoubtedly make the price of illegally buying a gun be astronomically high, and given how elastic the demand for guns is ["a 1 percent increase in the price of handguns lowers the quantity demanded by 2-3 percent," . http://www.jstor.org...], the threat of guns being brought into our national gun-free zone to be used for harm would be quite miniscule. Gun bans do *not* assume that murderers will follow the rules; what they do is force a substantial portion of murderers and would-be murderers to follow the rules by denying them easy access to lethal force. Re: Gun Control in UK and KenyaFirstly, the United Kingdom has an enormous loophole in its gun control laws -- allowing guns to be obtained by virtually anyone as long as it's ostensibly for "hunting" [. http://www.theguardian.com...]. Secondly, *both* of the sources which Pro cites attribute the increase in crime not to the new gun control laws, but to highly ineffective policing. For those reasons, we cannot accept Pro's UK data as evidence against the efficacy of a gun ban. As for Kenya, it has other problems which account for its high violence rates, such as an extremely corrupt government and virtually non-existent law enforcement [. http://www.heritage.org...]. Moreover, Pro has no way of knowing whether or not armed civilians being present would have changed anything in those mass-shootings; as Pro himself noted, 8% of mass-shootings have happened in public areas where guns were not prohibited. .. Re: Plano's Police ForceWhile response time is certainly important, most crimes are not resolved by catching the criminal in the act; they are resolved by the police examining the evidence at the crime scene and then going to catch the criminal so that justice can be served. The Plano Police have a reputation for being successful in doing this, and thus many criminals are deterred from trying to commit crimes in the first place, as is reflected in Plano's ultra-low crime rates. Re: Gun Manufacturers in PovertyPro says that gun manufacturers going out of business would result in widespread poverty, but that is simply false. Only about 220,000 people are employed in the firearms industry [. http://www.theblaze.com...], so the economy can easily adapt to that. With guns out of the picture, people will likely start looking for other forms of self-defense (e. g. pocket knives, pepper spray, martial arts training, advanced home security systems, etc) so new industries will end up growing and providing jobs for the displaced. Re: FoodMost animal products are grown on farms and killed through butchery. .. guns are not needed for that. And as for the extreme minority of people who hunt for food on a daily basis, Pro has failed to demonstrate that they have no other way of obtaining food. And by the way, it *is* possible to hunt using just sharp objects. Re: Hemenway StudyConsidering that Pro has cited Lott's work, which is from a similar time period as Hemenway's, I fail to see how he is in any place to be bringing up the issue of research possibly being outdated. The fundamental effect of gun prevalence on homicide rates does not just magically change over the course of a few decades. Re: Other Uses of GunsIt doesn't matter how many ways guns can be used beneficially if the frequency of detrimental use outweighs the frequency of beneficial use by more than 4 times. It's basic cost/benefit analysis. .. == CONCLUSION ==I have dismantled all of Pro's miscellaneous contentions and refuted his attacks on my arguments. My reasoning and academic studies clearly demonstrate that high rates of gun ownership *do* increase crime rates, and as I have explained several times now, a gun ban *would* be effective in keeping guns out of the hands of the criminally-inclined, thereby substantially reducing homicide rates and rendering such a ban to be decidedly beneficial. The resolution is negated.