Fire v.s. bsh: In the United States, private ownership of handguns ought to be banned.

Thanks for a ferret-tastic debate, Fire. FRAMEWORKCon says he can link arguments directly to the resolution, bypassing framework. This is view misunderstands why a framework a necessary. The "ought" in the topic is a term open to interpretation; the role of a framework is to interpret how arguments should matter in a ought question; e. g. , if the framework were deontological, no cost-benefit claims would matter in the assessment of what ought to be done. B/c frameworks are essential to defining how "ought" should be understood, you cannot divorce the framework from the resolution; the framework is essential to understanding the resolution itself. For instance, if you buy my framework, the resolution is asking whether a gun ban has more benefits than costs. You cannot impact directly to the resolution; the framework is a necessary intermediary. Con's 2nd and 3rd points have nothing to do with his framework, so they cannot link. ARGUMENTSI. Self-DefenseA. Guns aren't helpful for self-defenseI've already debunked Con's 2 million number. 23% of my 67,740 number is about 15,580. This simply pales in comparison to the tangible harm that guns cause. 31,076 Americans died from gun homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings in 2010. Also, 73,505 were hospitalized due to injury from a gun. [1] These numbers don't include robberies that guns ("valuable loot") induce, funding that blackmarket organizations get from selling guns, or unreported gun-related incidents. The benefits of self-defense simply do not outweigh the harms. My CSMonitor article was about untrained gun users, but it cited that 77% stat about trained gun users to make the point that if trained gun users were that inaccurate, then untrained users were likely far worse. It is the case that 77% stat pertains to trained users. The 67% data shows that in most cases victims won't have an chance to fire at an assailant. For those that do, most will miss. If 67/100 people are unable to fire, and if 77% of the remaining 33 people miss, only about 8 people of the original 100 will hit their target. An 8% hit-ratio (and this assumes all 33 people were trained, per Con's plan) is not sufficient to outweigh guns' myriad harms, esp. when even hitting the attacker does not guarantee they will go or stay down. Con says that many use their guns well, but this doesn't disprove the reality that the more guns and people involved in a situation, the greater the probability that a bystander will be hit. B. The two-million figure is dubiousCon basically makes a kind of "ad populum" fallacy to defend his source, saying that b/c his source has lots of "further readings" you should believe it. Firstly, his source could have cherry-picked those further readings. Secondly, just b/c lots of people say something is true, doesn't make it true. Truth should cohere with reality, and it's very clear that Con's study does not. Gun owners would have had to have used their guns in more than 100% of burglaries to make Con's data true (this is impossible). There would have to be thousands more records of defensive gun uses in police archives for Con's data study to be true, but there aren't. And the study's author (Kleck) admits that 32-64% of the defensive incidents he recorded were likely illegal. Con's data simply does not cohere with reality, and so it cannot be true, regardless of how many people say it is. Also, if 32-64% of those 2 million used guns to "intimidate or harm," that's a cost to allowing gun ownership. A ban would help fix that. C. AlternativesA gun is a "a portable firearm. " [2] A firearm is "a weapon from which a shot is discharged by gunpowder" or some other explosive powder. [2] This is the standard, commonplace understanding of what a handgun is. Most people, when they talk about banning handguns, don't think about banning water guns or air pistols; they're thinking firearms. Neither salt guns nor tasers use explosive powder, so they are not guns. By saying that salt guns or tasers are guns, Con is widening the scope of the term beyond the common understanding--a form of semantics--without any warrant. Prefer the common understanding, which is also backed by the dictionary. II. TimeA. ReduceReducing the number of guns would be the effect of a ban. I intend to reduce guns through a ban. If we "legally prohibit" handguns, the number of handguns will decline as a result. You cannot eliminate all handguns as a result of the ban, but you can cause drastic reductions in their number over time. Plus, Con's R1 definition of a ban was "decline," and my advocacy would cause gun numbers to decline. A handgun ban is feasible. First, we don't have to track down all 300 million guns, only the portion of that number that represents handguns. Second, the number of gun-owning households, according to Con himself, is declining, which makes the task easier. Third, Australia did it. Con has made much ado over the issue of Australia. While it is true that the US has more guns than Australia, both are in the top 13% of countries in terms of gun ownership. Australia's outback locations also pose unique challenges to gun confiscation efforts, b/c of how isolated sections of its populace are. If Australia could overcome those geographical challenges and collect guns from a population where a lot of guns exist, there is little reason to believe that the US could not overcome the challenges it faces to make a serious dent in the volume of guns here. Moreover, many citizens may voluntarily surrender their handguns. If a gun-loving culture like Australia, with its buy-back scheme (where it pays people for their guns, thus incentivizing voluntary turn-overs), could do it, there is little reason to believe the US could not do it. Voluntary compliance would reduce the need to track the guns down, too. The US doesn't need to confiscate all handguns. It just needs to make a dent in the volume of handguns in circulation. As handgun sale/importation cease, and the population grows, the number of guns per capita will fall. Plus, the longer the ban lasts, the more likely it is that local police forces, through arrests, stings, or happenstance, will find and confiscate illegal guns. A ban will reduce the number of handguns with the beneficial effects growing over time. B. TurnCon's argument was that "there is no reason for the government to waste time on gun banning, as it is useless. " My argument was that there is no reason to waste time trying to enact a license system, b/c the effort would be useless. Con's logic does invalidate his own plan, placing him in a clear double-bind. A change in the Supreme Court make-up (possible with Hillary) or an amendment could easily see a handgun ban pass Constitutional muster. Con has failed to show that a gun ban is impossible, and saving lives makes it worth the effort in trying (particularly as Con doesn't explain how the attempt to ban handguns itself would have any bad impacts). C. OtherWithout a clear assessment of how much it would cost, Con can't show that economic harms outweigh. Even if it cost more than Australia, the US has more resources than Australia and a GDP that is more than 16x Australia's. [3]III. EconomyA. JobsBanning ownership of handguns doesn't mean we ban handguns themselves. Obviously, our military can still use them, and I don't see why corporations here could not manufacture handguns for export only, as long as private persons in the US aren't allowed to own the guns, which is what we're talking about here, per R1 definitions. Therefore, as I noted last round: "According to Con's source, handguns only make up about half of guns manufactured in the U. S. , and since foreign consumption [and military sale] won't be disallowed, only a fraction of that fraction of manufacturing will actually stop. Subsidization of gun alternatives, and increase demand in them following a handgun ban, may actually create additional jobs. " If we're only talking about losing a fraction of a fraction, the impacts Con's getting are super small. The gain in jobs I noted may reduce the net loss more or may recoup it entirely. Also, guns aren't as important to the US economy as cars, which are bought, key to shipping, and key to getting to work. B. BlackmarketCon drops that the the illegal market gets its supply of guns from the legal one. Therefore, if you end the legal market, the blackmarket has no supply to sell, and so the blackmarket dries up. Plus, with a reduced supply, prices in the blackmarket will rise, pricing lots of criminals out, making it harder for them to purchase illegal guns. A ban will cripple the illegal market. VOTING ISSUES1. A Ban's Benefits A ban would cripple the blackmarket and reduce the number of gun-related injuries, accidental deaths, suicides, homicides, gun-induced robberies, and blackmarket-funded violence. 2. Con's Plan Less Effective The 77% info shows that training won't increase your chances of successful self-defense. Background checks work less well than bans, and--without safe storage laws--accidental deaths will stay high. And, Con can't starve the blackmarket as well as I can of its gun supply. He is also in a double-bind re: his plan. 3. Reduction Possible It is possible to reduce the number of handguns in the US via a ban: Australia and logic prove this. 4. Bans Not Bad Guns are poor self-defense tools; alternatives are better. Fewer people are saved by guns than are killed by guns. Con has failed to quantify his economic arguments, or to prove a ban would cost jobs. 5. Framework Con dropped my justifications for conseq. 2/3rds of Con's args don't link to his own framework, while I link to mine and to his (via alts and making people safer). SOURCES1 - . http://tinyurl.com...2 - . http://tinyurl.com...3 - . http://tinyurl.com...Because the clear benefits of a ban outweigh Con's ill-defined costs, I affirm.