Recent and past shootings are not a gun control problem but a problem of society and the individuals

Counter to Rebuttal #1: My argument was not reliant upon the stress level of students but rather that of their exposure to situations that can traumatize, instigate concepts of violence, and mentally harm them. While I do not refute the fact that both South Korea and the US have high levels of stress in relation to amounts of studying, I was not stating that their stress level was the sole contributing factor in that argument, rather that bullying, fear of violence, active participation in violence, as well as the levels of stress all together provide an environment that has children and adolescents growing up in a fearful and violent environment. This environment leads to "traumatic stress" which is a much different concept than the stress of tests and things such as that. http://www.nctsn.org... The stress children and adolescents face can lead to violent tendencies later on in life. In as high as 90% of child offenders, (http://www.counselling-directory.org.uk...), it was shown that they had experienced some form of childhood trauma and this was correlated with similar results to adult offenders. Based off of this, it is correct to assume that there is a highly likely chance that traumatic experiences in childhood, not academic stress but the bullying, fights, and fear as I actually mentioned, leads to violent behaviors, including mass murder and violence. Counter #2 My first point is that your numbers are vastly wrong. I'm not sure where you get 960,000 as 0.012% of 70mil but the correct percentage from 70mil is 8,775. I'd like to know where you get this nearly a million problem gun owners? And to quote my previously cited page, (www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp) " In 2007, there were 613 fatal firearm accidents in the United States, constituting 0.5% of 123,706 fatal accidents that year." So, if total number of fatal accidents combined of all types is only 12.9% of your supposed nearly a million problem gun owners, where are the reports on these numbers? Now, if we're talking accidents, which is not even the topic of this debate so you are not proving points with this argument, 613 accidents total with firearms. And to account the military and civilian firearms as you are mentioning in your other arguments, there are approximately 273,951,953 guns in the US. Of these 3,951,953 are military or police owned. The rest are civilian owned. Lets combine both accidents and homicides, a total of 10742 for the year 2007 (which the accident figure was taken from), 0.0038% of those guns actually had an incident. Now in your argument you state that small numbers do not mean a big deal, and that through your argument, if there is even a small number of gun related problems they should be heavily regulated if not eliminated from civilian use. By that logic, in the case of suicide, should we not regulate ropes? Knives? Access to high places? In the case of accidents, 872 died in 2006 due to inhalation of food into the respiratory tract, compared to 613 accidental firearms deaths. By the logic of "small percentage does not mean it is not a big deal" then we should regulate food ingestion. 661 deaths by accidental suffocation or strangulation in bed, should we regulate sheets? (http://www.nsc.org...) The point I am trying to make is that there will always be small percentages, there will always be outliers and radicals but to impose regulations or, at worse, remove the rights on something due to a minute percentile then you are opening the door for restrictions on everything which counteracts the entire concept of freedom. Now that I have responded to the issue of suicide, which again is not up for debate but I see the point you were attempting to make, I shall return to the topic at hand. Still in countering the second rebuttal, you state that this is only "legal gun owners" in this percentage. Actually that emphasizes my point even more. The numbers I gave you are factual, the numbers of owners, and the numbers of homicides and accidents. So taking the percentage from the number of legal owners that is assuming that legal owners are the ones committing crimes, which is in a majority, not the case, in fact, two-thirds of gun related deaths are results of criminal on criminal action, (i.e. gang violence, 94% of gang related violence is firearms related) (http://www.gunfacts.info...). So, by increasing the number of owners from not just the legal owners but to the illegal owners as well, (which I can't give you a number on as they can't tell you how many illegal owners there are), you are actually shrinking the percentage of number of gun owners that commit homicide with them. Increase the number of owners, keep the homicide level static and the percentage decreases. So the point that my number is shaky is correct, but the shakiness in that case would be in my favor as it would be stating that the percentage is smaller. Of course small percentages still matter though. Rebuttal of Sub-Point 1 As I am running out of space I will keep this concise. You state that less access to guns means fewer shootings. I will not argue that is a valid point, because the whole concept of a shooting requires access to a gun. However, restricted access to firearms is not a measure of less violence or a reduction of violent tendencies. You use South Korea as an example, while I will not refute that there is a small number of firearms related deaths in SK, I would like to point out the overall homicide rate, 2.9:100,000, as of 2009 (http://www.gunpolicy.org...). Now, lets look at another country with high gun control levels, the United Kingdom, 1.2:100,000. Similar laws, in fact a little looser laws, and less than half the homicide rate, (http://www.gunpolicy.org...). Now, lets look at a place where there are 420,000 automatic firearms in civilian hands, over 700K individually owned firearms, and every male is required to own an automatic firearm from the approximate ages of 20-34, (give or take a few years), Switzerland. In 2009, 0.67:100,000 homicides (http://www.gunpolicy.org...). Now, finally, the US, 4.96:100,000. In the US, automatic rifles are HIGHLY regulated, in Switzerland they are in every household. In the US, 47% of households have guns, in Switzerland 100% of households within the age range of 20-34 and a high percentage of those above that range possess guns. In the UK, half the homicide rate of S. Korea, yet similar gun laws. Put all this in perspective, with vastly different numbers between countries with similar laws and drastic differences between countries that, according to my opponent's argument, should be high levels of gun crime, this leads to the conclusion that other factors are the reason for these crimes. Final statement of the round: My opponent claimed that I made no argument to prove that the individual is the cause of the actions or a bigger factor. However, by reducing guns as the contributing factor the only logical conclusion is that the individual or his outside influences are the greater concern. As my argument was to be based upon that guns are not the major factor in these crimes, by eliminating them as a major contributing factor through my arguments here, and issuing my arguments regarding the childhood trauma, which my opponent misinterpreted and I clarified in this as not "standard stress" but "traumatic stress or events," I leave it now open for my opponent to accurately refute my statements. Also, I'd still like to see where my opponent found his numbers that he vastly miscalculated.