Resolved: In the United States, private ownership of handguns ought to be banned.

We'll go with my opponent's case, then my own. First, value morality over government legitimacy. Morality also takes into account people's lives while government legitimacy just focuses on the government. My opponent supports this value with his first contention, which says a handgun ban is undemocratic. His first subpoint is Constitution, and his second one is self-defense. I'll address his first subpoint. I have a few responses for his constitution argument. 1. Begs for some external standard"we derive moral rules from the constitution but that begs the question of where and how we formulate those rules. 2. Our framework justifies overriding the Constitution because the right to not be oppressed is a trump and should be preferred " that"s Winter and Leighton 3. Constitution flows aff " a majority of legal scholars are on our side Kates 83 "HANDGUN PROHIBITION AND THE ORIGINAL MEANING OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT" Those who claim the second amendment guarantees individual right to arms is endorsed by only a minority of legal scholars. The exclusively state's right position is dominant among lawyers and law professors and the Bar Association. 4. There is an elastic clause within the constitution meaning that its bearings can always be changed. Moreover, this means that it fails as a consistent guide to action. 5. Handgun bans have never been overturned by the Second Amendment " empirics prove VPC 2000 http://www.vpc.org... An objection is that the Second Amendment forbids it. This is pure myth. Bans on handgun possession have remained on the books for decades"despite vigorous court challenges. 6. Empirically denied"wartime presidents don"t adhere to the constitution meaning it"s not an objective normative theory. 7. Can"t weigh between conflicting constitutional claims because they"re empirical facts meaning it fails to guide action. Also it's impossible to weigh back violations of the constitution. 8. It"s a bad moral system because it doesn"t tell us what to do when not within the sphere of the constitution. For example, the constitution doesn"t mention gay marriage and a plethora of other things and as such we have to guide to action when discussing those policies. Let's go to the second subpoint, self-defense. 1. Extend Donohue 15. Handguns are rarely used for self-defense " only in less than 1% of all cases " which means case outweighs on probability and magnitude of lives saved. Prefer the evidence because it uses 7 academic journals of social psychology to support its conclusion. 2. You"re 22 times more likely to die than because you own a handgun than you are to use it in self defense NY Times 15 http://www.nytimes.com... Gun safety studies have found that a gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be used in a family homicide, suicide or accident than to be used in self-"defense. Prefer the evidence because it cites empirical examples from Alaska and Hawaii and utilizes multiple gun safety studies thereby constructing a better methodology. 3. Self-defense is rare compared to overall handgun violence " their evidence inflates the numbers using a terrible methodology VPC 2000 http://www.vpc.org... Through dubious methodologies, pro-gun advocates have inflated numbers showing handguns to be effective. Bringing handguns into the home has the opposite effect, placing residents at a higher risk. A person living in a home with a gun is three times more likely to die by homicide and five times more likely to die by suicide. Self-defense handgun uses are rare. 4. The argument is also self-defeating. DeGrazia 14 https://kiej.georgetown.edu... Evidence strongly supports that owning guns for the purpose of self-defense tends to be self-defeating. Household members face a greater chance of suffering a violent death if the house contains guns. Gun ownership tends to be self-defeating from a safety standpoint. This takes care of contention 1. Let's go to contention 2, which is pretty much a poll. However, a buyback program gives an incentive for people to give up their guns. The poll is also only significant for a gun ban, not a buyback. Let's go to my case. My opponent's attack against my standard, minimizing oppression, says that women can use those guns in self-defense. However, I've given several studies that handguns are rarely used in self-defense, and it's self-defeating, so that argument doesn't stand. This also means my contention 1 still stands. Let's go to my second contention. I've proven that a buyback program won't be democratic. Also, quality of lives doesn't exist without quantity of lives. You can't improve life if there is no life to begin with. Also, my opponent says my illicit market argument doesn't make sense. However, I'll spell out the warrants. 1. Criminals get guns from people who purchased them legally, so a buyback solves the root cause. 2. Half a million guns are stolen, and these swell the number of guns in the illicit market. 3. If we restrict guns in the illicit market, their cost increases, which diminish ability to obtain guns. 4. Less available guns decreases the number of guns. Finally, I think my opponent is confused about "last speech" thing. The reason my opponent can't say anything in the second part of the fifth round is because that speech doesn't exist in LD debate. There is no "3NR". Sorry if there was any misunderstanding.