Gun control does not reduce crime (USA only)

I hope I can counter him! My fellow DDOians, let me be the first to say that I want to stop crime as much as possible. My vision is that we all live in a world free from fear, harm, and that we all need to work together to ensure every american family can feel safe within their homes. Which is why I personally support gun control laws. I couldn't imagine the pain of losing a loved one to a shooting, and I think we all agree that we do not want to see criminals getting guns, but the question thus becomes, how do we best stop criminals from getting them? The answer is regulation, in my opinion, which we already have. So let's examine my opponents case and counter them. C1: Correlation is not CausationMy opponent is trying to show a correlation between several factors: location and gun laws. However, correlation does not establish causation. As such, my opponents case is dead on arrival. Many factors goes into the crime rate, including but not limited to: poverty rates, child upbringing, avalible social services, ghettoization, policing, laws, enforcement, etc. .. Thus, my opponent at best has established a questionable cause fallacy. Because gun laws are already in effect and my opponent is challenging the status quo, I don't believe he has established enough to hit his BOP. C2: Cherry-Picked EvidenceMy opponent selects Vermont, and compares it to D. C. This is an odd comparison. D. C is unique in that it is not technically a state in the first place. Vermont boarders along Canada (which has crazy strict gun laws in and of itself), is one of the least populated states, it has one of the lowest poverty rates, and one of the highest rates of personal income in the country. An odd comparison when D. C Has ghettoization, is under supreme control of Congress rather than a Mayor and City Council, and is subject to national political issues rather than local, a frequent issue with D. C politics. D. C also has a higher unemployment rate overall, and less income with its people. Really, one would be safer to compare a steak to a watermelon, just nothing in common and kinda unfair. Source: . http://en.wikipedia.org...;http://en.wikipedia.org...;C3: Legal Owners are Not Harmed by Gun LawsMy opponents claim that "criminals will continue to get weapons on the black market illegally, will mean gun laws harm legal gun owners" makes several fundamental errors. For one, criminals are criminals because they break the law, by very definition of being a criminal. For this logic, shall we legalize murder because people will still kill people, despite it being against the law? The reason why we make laws like this, is because laws can be an extention of our values as a society, and does not always have to be about impacts. I for one, do not value people who are mentally unstable from operating a gun, for instance, regardless of the potential impacts it may have, even if we do assume my opponents assertion is even correct in the first place. Thing is, is that several organizations have pointed out that gun laws work. Which is why the U. S Government continues to impliment them. Gun laws can make potenital criminals reconsider their actions, not be able to obtain a gun in the first place, gives police enhanced powers to investigate potential gun issues, and a variety of other impacts. Even if in theory it didn't prevent criminals from getting a gun, gun issues are a huge burden on the healthcare industry in terms of costs annually. Harvard's School od Public Health has extensive studies on gun laws, due to the problems and impacts guns have on health. Sources: . http://smartgunlaws.org...;http://www.hsph.harvard.edu...;C4: Case Studies Proving Gun Laws Would Have Worked (Naval Yard Shooting, and Fort Hood Shooting)With the Naval Yard Shooter, the perputrator Aaron Elexis could have been stopped the entire time, should a simple background check used on him. Aaron thought he could actually talk to microwaves, cited for misconduct issues in the military, and even former shooting issues that turned out to be non-fatal. The fact that he was even in another former shooting incident should have resulted in a red flag being raised when he purchased a gun legally. Because the background check on him did not go far enough (not enough gun regulation), lives were lost as a result. Worse yet, even his own doctor was perscribing him medications out of fear that Aaron would harm someone. Nidal Malik Hasan, the perp of the Fort Hood Shooting was also known to frequent terrorist sites that preached extreemism, and promoted suicide bombings. Mainly, he was in touch with several known, and highly dangerous, Al-Qaeda terrorists. One of the most noted was his Imam Answir Al-Awlaki who died in Yemen as a result of a drone strike (youtube video is on him and is impact before becoming deceased). ;It becomes pretty clear that he was an extremist who gradually worked up the courage to do the shooting in the first place. Despite these suspected affiliations (later confirmed as a result of the crime), a simple background check could have also prevented this shooting. Alas, the lack of information in the background because the gun control laws didn't go far enough, also resulted in the deaths of many in the Forts' shooting. Nidal has since been sentenced to death as a result. Source: . http://en.wikipedia.org...;http://en.wikipedia.org...;C5: Lawlessness in Society, and Bad Gun OwnershipLets be honest here, every gun owner one meets is a self-reported "good gun owner". How many criminals are voluntarily going to give up their guns on the basis of being admittedly "bad gun owners"? I can't find any research on the matter, so I'm going to speculate none. As for the claim that gun laws will mean less being able to protect oneself. That's a slippery slope argument indicitive of a lawless society. Otherwise, why would we even need a police force if everyone can simply govern themselves? As the Harvard School of Public Health points out, most acts of "self defence" are actually illegal as judges have pointed out, even if the story is true and the law was followed, the claim of self defence won't normally hold up. Self defence laws are far more complex than what most people tend to think. Whats the difference between self defence in a situation with a gun owner shooting a criminal, and manslaughter? You have to use other means, and self defence is a last resort. With guns, you make it a first instead. But we don't go into a lawless society. We do expect citizens in distress to call police, and not utilize their guns. Worse yet, when guns were used, it was used as a baragining chip to the situation for more power, not to deescalate the incident. In other words, when more guns come out, the situiation got worse, not better most often times. And few criminals are actually ever shot. When they are, they normally are victims in the eyes of the law than actual perputrators. Source: . http://www.hsph.harvard.edu...;Thank you to my opponent for this debateYour turn bud! Good luck!