On balance a ban on firearms would not be that effective in the US

Going to jump straight into this but we are debating if a ban on firearms on balance would be effective in the US. As I stated in my opening round, this is about whether or not it will achieve its desired result and drastically reduce deaths to the point the ban would actually achieve its purpose. C1) The real problemI think this is the main issue in a gun ban debate. The focus on gun bans are always to reduce deaths, and generally it is assumed decreasing deaths from guns will benefit the society as a whole because it is drastically changing the amount of deaths that occur overall. The issue is the assumption that comes along with it. The basic line of logic is one we always hear which is "Guns Kill People". This entire line of logic is entirely false. Guns obviously do not kill people, people kill people. Guns are just the catalyst for people to commit a crime or murder with. So the proper line of logic and what a gun ban should be focused on is deleting a catalyst for murder(guns). So I think most people can agree that a gun ban would have an effect, which is to reduce the amount of gun deaths that occur. We can logically assume this since guns cause deaths indirectly when used as a catalyst, and banning a large amount of guns would reduce the number of deaths that occur from the guns that are banned. I will dive more into this later but there are major flaws with this argument even if we were to accept it. A ban will reduce some gun deaths but does not reduce the death count enough to actually make a difference and it does not solve the problem at hand or address the core of the problem.(a) A ban on gun ownership will generally only affect law abiding gun owners(b) You are not addressing the core problem which is the people doing the killing. People will and and always will murder for reasons of their own. You can rewind history back to its start and murder has and always will occur. It will occur with any type of weapon that is available. Even if a gun ban were implemented, people would find different ways to commit crimes and kill. This is not debatable its an objective fact, that is supported by history. C2) Comparing Gun Ownership with Murder RatesNow going back to the last contention, let's assume that a ban was implemented. There is another primary issue that would occur, which is something we also hear quite a bit. Bad guys will still get guns even if a ban or tighter restrictions are put into place. No criminal is going into a background check to buy a gun, they are getting it through illegal avenues. This will occur the same way if a ban was actually implemented. A ban would only affect people that buy guns legally. It would strictly reduce the amount of civilian gun ownership while allowing criminals to still obtain guns through illegal means. With that being said, most states with a high gun ownership rate compared to states with lower gun ownership actually have lower crime rates. This is especially true of states with concealed carry permits. To put this in simple terms, states that allow you to carry have significantly lower crime rates than states that do not allow you to carry. Just to give you an example take a look at some of statistics. These are ratings based on a per 100k scaleMichigan/Detroit Population - 707,096 Crime - 2,122.9 Murder - 54.6 [1]Missouri/St. Louis Population -318,667 Crime - 1,776.5 Murder - 35.5 [2]California/Oakland Population - 399,487 Crime -1,993.3 Murder - 31.8 [3]You will see this trends continue and what you will notice is that these are states with strict gun control laws, at least stricter than others[4] Even if you want to compare crime and murder in other counties you often see the same thing. If you compare Britans crime rates after they initiated a hand gun ban, right after the hand gun ban crime rates and murder soared. It took years after the handgun ban for crime to decline and that was only because they hired more police officers and the high influx of police officers began to affect the crime rate. Immediately after the handgun ban however crime rates sky rocketed higher than ever. [5] The next thing we can address is that there is no direct correlation between guns and murders. At least other than high population. More people = more murders, and if there are a good many guns in those states the influx can appear high but normally there is virtually no correlation between gun ownership and crime rates. The only correlation you can possibly make is with robbery, which is not even that influential. Murder rates however literally have no correlation and as I have shown states and cities with strict gun bans have just as high if not higher crime and murder rates than states without strict gun control laws. C3) A gun ban is not practicalYou would have to look at ways to actually implement a ban that could work. One of the primary ways a gun ban is usually started is with a buy back. The government tries to buy back guns from its citizens in a attempt to reduce the total gun count. It is considered one of the most practical ways to actually reduce gun counts and help regulate gun control. I would refer you to where I'm living now and that is Atlanta. Atlanta tried a buy back program to reduce the gun count and tried to help recover guns that they "considered to be a threat to the community". A great crowd actually turned out and they recovered a great deal of guns, but a primary issue is the type of guns they were receiving. A lot of guns in the buyback were actually broke or older guns that were considered to not even "be a real threat", and through surveys conducted at the buy back it was learned that people were selling older guns and keeping the more effective ones. Some citizens were even quoted that they sold "crappy guns to go buy better ones". It's not even just in Atlanta, but as supported by the British handgun ban failure, experts say the best way to reduce gun violence is to increase the amount of police. " Researchers who have evaluated gun control strategies say buybacks – despite their popularity – are among the least effective ways to reduce gun violence. They say targeted police patrols, intervention efforts with known criminals and, to a lesser extent, tougher gun laws all work better than buybacks. " [6]The follwoing source also supports that increasing police officers is the best way to reduce crime[7]. There is no doubt that when you increase the number of armed police officers crime will in turn reduce, but there is no correlation between banning fire arms and reducing crime or muder.C4) Concealed Carry Permits Reduce CrimeThis is also something else to consider. There is no correlation between murder and gun ownership but there is a corrleation in the lack of murder and concealed carry permits. States with concealed carry permits have seen a drastic decrease in crime. Chicago is just one state that has seen the effects of this [8]. It's not just Chicago but studies back this as well"The study by the Crime Prevention Research Center found that 11.1 million Americans now have permits to carry concealed weapons, up from 4.5 million in 2007. The 146 percent increase has come even as both murder and violent crime rates have dropped by 22 percent."[9][10] “We found that the size of the drop [in crime] is directly related to the percentage of the population with permits,”. Between 2007 and the preliminary estimates for 2013, murder rates have fallen from 5.6 to 4.4 per 100,000." [9][10]ConclussionNot only is there no correlation between gun ownership and crime, but carrying guns actually reduces the amount of crime that happens. Not only will a gun ban not acheive it's desired effect, but it will have the exact opposite one. [1] http://www.fbi.gov...[2] http://www.fbi.gov...[3] http://www.fbi.gov...[4] http://smartgunlaws.org...[5] http://crimepreventionresearchcenter.org...[6] http://www.usatoday.com...[7] http://www.academia.edu...[8] http://www.washingtontimes.com...[9] http://crimepreventionresearchcenter.org...[10]http://www.foxnews.com...