Other than the exceptions outlined below, arms should not be regulated

I will start with refuting my opponent’s case and then defend mine. R1: Defense against others My opponent’s first argument is based on 2 assumptions. 1. That people are going to use guns in self-defense against others 2. That people are effectively protecting themselves against criminals, abusive governments etc. Both assumptions are wrong. A. Self defense Gun owners are not likely to use guns in self-defense. Deborah Azrael and Matthew Miller from Harvard University and Northeastern University respectively both published a survey on January of 2001 and found that the purported “self-defense uses” that owners reported were illegal and dangerous to the public. There were 2 surveys that were analyzed in the study and there was a total of 43 self-defense incidents reported from everyday people that used guns. Not only was it found that claims of gun victimization outweighed claims of self-defense use 3-1, but the cases of self-defense were sent to 5 criminal court judges to measure the legality of the self-defense cases, excluding the ones that did not include the actual use of the gun or ones that did not have recent information leaving 35. 51% of the cases were deemed “most likely illegal” and included cases of escalating arguments leading to conflict, and unjustified discharging of a gun (1). This leads us to the conclusion that most guns are used to victimize people, not defend oneself. The most likely impact of increasing gun ownership is an increase in gun victimization and people who violate the law to “defend” oneself. Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post in June of 2015 examines FBI data on gun deaths from 2012 and found that for every justifiable gun homicide in 2012, there were 34 gun homicides, 78 gun suicides, and 2 accidental shootings (4). Thus, flow this argument to the negation. B. Adequate protection Gun owners are not protected against any threat on their life. Joseph Vince, Timothy Wolfe, and Layton Field of St. Mary’s University recruited 77 individuals of differing levels of firearm experience to see exactly how average gun buyers fare when put in situations where self-defense by firearm is appropriate using a police department simulation of potential scenarios. Not only were the people with no skill in firearms less likely to take cover, but they also took less shots to neutralize the threat. Even then, only 57% of those labeled as advanced gun users took cover (2). Thus, even if someone were to use a gun for self-defense, it is incredibly unlikely that they would be able to neutralize the situation at hand without being killed themselves, or causing undue harm. As reported by Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post in July of 2015, most states don’t require gun owners to be licensed, much less trained. While states like Arizona prohibited localities from imposing their own training requirements (3). This means that the general gun-owning populous will not be able to respond to threats at all, meaning that my opponent’s point is null. In all likeliness, more guns for people who are put into a situation that justifies the use of said gun without increasing training, which would prevent someone from using a weapon until they mastered it, is a violation of the amendment. R2: Liberty My opponent makes a bare-assertion fallacy claiming that guns are the only protection from any regime. The entire point of representatives and politicians is to protect the people from oppressors and promote security through the social contract. If you don’t like your representative, you can run for office or elect someone else. These are both ways to protect against oppressive individuals from leading a country. Regardless, violence against regimes fragments the country and usually begets more violence. The only thing you need to know to understand this is the Civil War in the US. Not only was it one of the bloodiest war that was ever fought, but the country was subject to a crippled economy and workforce and more divisions in the country than ever. Simply put, violent revolts are rarely the answer, and not even needed for the most part, especially in the US where we can elect those who lead us. D1: Straw purchases My opponent states that there would be no need for straw purchasing since all people would be able to own any weapon. This is far from the truth. Henry Blodget of the Business Insider in December of 2012 shows that there are 51,438 gun retailers in the US, not including pawn shops that sell firearms and collector shops, making up over 100,000 dealers in the US (5). These stores would not be shut down. In fact, there will be an increase of dealers in the US. Yet, remember the entire point that straw gun purchasers use this tactic to begin with is not because they can’t pass a background check, or are unable to purchase a weapon under a given statute. Usually, people break this rule to not be tracked. Remember, I gave an example about the San-Bernardino shooter who used this method to not have the weapon traced back to him (6). He wanted to get away without being jailed or detained. However, this does not change with the passage of this resolution. Criminals who intend to use the weapons still would not want to be tracked, which will still happen since the resolution defines regulation as preventing the use of or sale of weapons but not tracking those who buy a weapon. Thus, there is still incentive for buying weapons through straw purchases. My opponent moves on to justify certain circumstances in which he considers straw purchases “ok.” Even if I were to concede that in certain circumstances I would feel sympathy for straw purchasers, the fact that most of these guns are then used in crime far outweighs my opponent’s point. My Everytown research card shows that 47% of gun trafficking cases involved a straw purchase (7). However, if you want to look toward another impact besides trafficking illegal weapons, then the Kevin Williamson of the National Review in October of 2016 can supply you with one. He explains that the real problem with straw purchasing is that instead of going after the straw purchasers who have clean criminal records and are hard to prosecute, the police usually go after the actual recipient of the straw purchase, incentivizing straw purchasing and allowing gangs to have guns that are supplied through others (8). In summation, straw-gun purchases will still occur due to criminals still not being tracked, leading to an increase of gun supply for street gangs and criminals. D2: Black market My opponent claims that there would be no black market for guns since all sales would be legal. This is exactly what my point was to begin with, though. Not only are weapons going to be able to freely move into the hands of Mexican drug cartels and other counties to be used for crime, but there would be no action possible to protect the gun market in the US. The Council of Foreign Relations in July of 2013 released a report that hallmarked the failures of the US to protect guns from flowing into their borders, resulting in 70% of guns used to commit crimes in Mexico, 90% of crime guns in the Caribbean, and over 80% in Jamaica being traced back to the US. This large influx of guns into Central America cut the GDP of the country by 8% in security, law enforcement, and health spending (9). This impact occurs at a greater rate since there the gun laws dissipate, facilitating more gun purchases from Latin American countries. My opponent makes this effect worse with his advocacy, meaning you must negate. Secondly, realize that the US has a problem domestically with the black market. I show how over 400 addresses on the deep web were funneling illegal weapons into the public, which is a net harm to everyone in the US and, thankfully, was stopped by the FBI (10). The problem with these sites were not that they were just selling firearms, but the fact that not only are the users anonymous on the Deep Web, but also the weapons themselves. Sam Biddle of Gizmodo in July of 2012, by using software available to anyone with internet access and a computer, found The Armory. This is a large Deep Web site that sold weapons that were illegal, shipped in discrete packaging to anyone who is willing to put up bitcoins for weapon in question. That’s not where the story ends, though. Sam Biddle sent a private message to a few of the users on the site to find weapons to, “arm a 20-person paramilitary group to overthrow a West African Nation…” The scary part was that people complied and offered everything from assault rifles, to drones and other forms of warfare (11). Remember, this would all be available to someone legally without any requirement on his/her part to even have their name shared. This impact allows users to buy large swaths of weapons with little to no accountability, fueling violence at home. So, regardless of whethe a tank is illegal to own, realize that responsible ownership of weapons will be nonexistent after this resolution is passed with channels of anonymous trade opening. Thus, negate. Conclusion This debate has boiled down to impacts. My opponent’s arguments, and thusly, impacts don’t stand. However, I have shown that lives will be saved by negating the resolution, warranting a negative ballot. 1. (http://tinyurl.com...) 2. 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