On Campus Concealed Carry

In contention 1, I explained that according to studies, 93% of attacks against college students do not ever occur on campus, meaning that 1) concealed carry laws are unnecessary and 2) crime may be increased on campus as a result of the existence of the weapons. He responded to the first impact by saying that "women cannot protect themselves" and that students may still be attacked. While they still may be attacked, the fact of the matter is that concealed carry laws ON CAMPUS will not have a marginal impact for increasing student safety. Even if we assume that gun holders will not commit violent crimes themselves, college campuses are already secure, meaning that there will be no positive impact to the safety of the students. If he wants to advocate a change in policy, he needs to explain why it should be done, and insofar as the status quo will not change (since this is a debate about CCW ONLY on campuses), there is no reason to change the law. Additionally, please remember that eliminating guns on campus does not mean that students will not be able to defend themselves; there are other means that students can use to insure their safety, including campus and city police officers, other hand-held weapons, friends, etc. Finally, using guns will not prevent any loss of life in "self-defense." Public health researcher David Hemenway concludes that "[g]un use in self-defense is rare, and it appears that using a gun in self-defense is no more likely to reduce the chance of being injured during a crime than various other forms of protective action," and notes that no "evidence seems to exist that gun use in self-defense reduces the risk of death." David Hemenway, Private Guns, Public Health 78 (2004). Thus, even if you drop all of my statistics, you still cannot vote for him because gun holders do not save any lives, so there is no need to have guns on campus. Let's look at the second impact about increasing crime rates. In fact, CCW states actually DO have more crime rates than other states. According to the disaster center sources that he cited, in the city of Chicago, which does not permit concealed carry, the violent crime index per 100,000 people was 1,195.7 (http://www.disastercenter.com...) , while in Dallas, the index per 100,000 people was 1,333.2 http://www.disastercenter.com.... Given that the population of Dallas was 1, 715, 800 smaller than that of Chicago in 2005, we would expect more crime in Chicago. However, the city that permitted CCW was more dangerous and violent than the city that did not permit concealed guns. He will try to respond to this with a "correlation does not equal causation argument", but please remember that needs to prove alternate causation in today's round in order to prove this true. His response to Contention 2 was twofold. First, he says that he cannot reject my claim because I did not cite the study. This is false because he could have easily researched the position and tried to provide counter-statistics. Second, Harvard University study study I used is quoted and cited below. "According to the only previous national survey of firearm possession at college, 6.4% of male students and 1.5% of female students had a working firearm at school. In addition, students with guns were more likely than students without guns to have alcohol-related problems, such as getting into fights attributed to drinking alcohol and being arrested for drinking while intoxicated." (http://www.riskandinsurance.com...) According to that same study, only 1/2 of college gun owners said that they had guns for protection, meaning that the rest use the guns for nefarious purposes. His second response was that "we are not discussing who should own guns." This is fallacious because if we are discussing whether or not CCW should be permitted, we also need to discuss who will benefit from those laws; if these are risk-prone criminals, then CCW will pose a security threat and there is no reason to affirm. He also claims that these students would break the law anyways. While this is true, it is more difficult and more expensive for them to gain access to guns currently than it would be if CCW were permitted because gun companies would begin targeting college-aged children as buyers. This would allow criminals to purchase guns more easily than they currently can, making the prevalence of dangerous weapons on campus more likely. Against Contention 3, he claims that this study is irrelevant. He misses the point of the study, however, because it explicitly demonstrates that the people do not wish to have guns because they fear for their safety; guns would increase on campus as a result of CCW. He then refutes my evidence with anecdotal evidence that can neither be verified nor proven false. Prefer my hard evidence over his anecdotal evidence because he there is no proof that his statement is true, while mine is actually backed by statistics. He makes a MASSIVE concession against my first point against his case; I demonstrated that the fact that he can name a few college shooting incidences proves that shooting is not prevalent on campuses because the media covers sensational and spectacular stories. He had ABSOLUTELY NO RESPONSE to this argument meaning that this proves that crime is not prevalent on campus, so CCW are not even necessary in today's college societies. Against my second point, he says that CHL holders "never commit crimes on campus." First, look to the Harvard study that I provide earlier; if gun holders commit crimes on campus, and many gun holders have CHL permits, then CHL permit holders contribute to crimes on campus. Second, against the UA example I provided, he says that this is not relevant because UA did not permit students to have guns. This is fallacious because this individual, WHO MURDERED HIS PROFESSORS, POSSESSED A CHL PERMIT. So, even if the campus did not allow it, a COLLEGE STUDENT WITH A CWL PERMIT SLAUGHTERED INNOCENT PEOPLE. This is exactly what I have been trying to prove throughout the debate. He also concedes that most campuses do not have major incidents BECAUSE ONLY 4% of students CURRENTLY OWN GUNS (http://www.riskandinsurance.com...). This means that campuses are safe because STUDENTS DO NOT OWN GUNS. Insofar as this is true, any evidence that he provides about "no major incidents" is flawed because it does not take this fact into account. Finally, I mentioned that most students would not be able to have guns on campus anyways because license holders must be 21, and most students are under that age, so the only people who would benefit from this law are criminals who will be able to legally bring guns onto campus. His response is that "just because some cannot have them does not mean that others should not be able to defend themselves." He is missing the point of the argument, however. The entire premise of his case is that students will increase safety with guns, but if they cannot have them anyways, then they will be unable to improve their security by owning CWL permits. These permits are therefore useless on college campuses and should not be permitted because they will not help the students defend themselves anyways.