New Member Debate: (Domestic) Gun Proliferation

I also apologize for my tardiness in posting. Stupid job. .. I've listed responses in order, but had to eliminate some of the punctuated separations due to character count. --------------------------- Overview: It's important to the debate that we recognize that full banning of firearms is not a realistic possibility for the U. S. I maintain that arguments involving full bans of all types of firearms are non-topical. C1. Living Document: 1. Of course the Supreme Court is not without fault. However, over the last 228 years, our justice system has improved immensely from what it used to be. Note that clearly unjust rulings, like the one my opponent mentions, have been reversed. This is why we have the checks and balances system, so that a body like the Supreme Court can't just railroad freedoms. Furthermore, considering the qualifications that those justices have, there is a clear and justified reason that we would defer to them for interpretations of the Constitution. 2. My opponent states that, generally, adding freedoms have led to more positive good than limiting them. First of all, the limitation of access to firearms to the general population can easily be seen as increasing the freedom of some while decreases the freedom of others (the protection of my right to life and due process over a gun owner's supposed right to an automatic weapon). Second of all, the freedom being expanded needs to be a justified one. Allowing the public access to all firearms is not only impractical, but a complete bastardization of the 2nd amendment. Intention: 1. My opponent states, wrongly, that the 2nd Amendment was created in order for citizens to protect themselves against any and all threats, including those posed by fellow citizens. Look at the text of the amendment: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. " The intention was to maintain a "well regulated militia," and this was to ensure the "security of a free State. " While you could argue, based on the text of documents like The Declaration of Independence, that the founding fathers had intended to direct this to both foreign invading ground troops and one's own government, you would be hard pressed to prove that this was directed at citizens exercising vigilante justice on their peers. If this was the case, then why do we cede control of the enforcement of laws to police officers and judges? We do it because we operate within a social contract state. As for protecting ourselves from a despotic government, governments like ours that have "disarmed the populace" are places like Great Britain. I don't see those first world, democratic governments turning into tyrannies anytime soon. My opponent needs to be at least moderately realistic. 2. Let's face it: the only time personal firearms would be helpful at all in a war situation (which is what the amendment directly pertains to) would be in a ground war. Those aren't going to be waged on U. S. soil. My opponents only response to this is, "well, erm, it's possible. .. ". That's just not good enough. C2. England: 1. It's a little funny that my opponent is trying to discredit a government crime study conducted by the U. K. simply because "it's newer than his stuff. " If you read my opponent's "sources," it wouldn't surprise you that there might be a temporary increase in crime rates following a major ban on firearms in a given country. However, as my source clearly states, in 2008-2009, gun crime has actually dropped off significantly since the U. K. banned firearms. Also, please note that my opponent clearly was attempting to use this data as CURRENT data, as his point was that criminals in the U. K. had simply switched to bludgeoning or stabbing weapons to commit the same crimes. My data proves that crime rates are DOWN and that his assertion was false. 2. My opponent's sources are essentially opinionated blogs written by hardcore fans of absolute gun access. Neither website is reputable or edited by research experts in their respective fields. The reason. com article is riddled with pleas to emotion (like the paragraphs in which the author highlights particularly disaster-pornish singular incidents of gun violence, like that in any way corresponds to crime patterns in the U. K. ). Strong Armed Robbery: 1. My simple response to this is prove it. I posit that you can't, because professionals in the judicial and law enforcement field have been trying to research deterrence for decades, and haven't been very successful as it's awfully hard to research WHY a criminal chooses to commit a crime or, more importantly, doesn't choose to. 2. Without touching deterrence either way, I can logically warrant my argument that citizens should not have full access to firearms due to our obligations within the social contract. I made this argument in the last round, and it goes totally unaddressed. To refresh the readers, I argued that, in order to maximize safety and more accurately ensure that guns are used wisely and fairly, they should be at least partially restricted from the general population. My opponent had no answer to this. C3. 1. This correlation is a bad one. Exposure is simply not enough. Look back to my analogy for this argument. If Timmy isn't educated by Grandpa about the guns that Timmy is exposed to, the risk is just as high that Timmy will do something foolish as not. This can be likened to showing teenagers a porn flick and then saying, "Alrighty kids. You've been exposed to sex. Go have fun! " There was a community in Georgia, I believe, that discovered a 200+ ring of kids, ages 12-19, all having sex with each other on a regular basis without protection. They found out because a bunch of them got syphilis. By the way, this community had a strict abstinence-only education policy. Clearly, these kids were exposed to sex, but without the proper education, exposure was ultimately useless. 2. The meat of this argument is basically conceded by my opponent. I'm not looking to nit pick about exactly how deadly a gun is versus a knife/bludgeoning weapon. On my 3rd Response: 1. Not to patronize my opponent here, but he really *does* shoot himself in the foot with this line of argumentation. What he espouses in his "compromise" is basically status quo. My opponent can't have it both ways. 2. Again, my argument about who can use weapons most wisely and most fairly goes unanswered. This has now become a crucial voting point for this debate, as my opponent has essentially conceded that, reasonable or no, an ordinary, untrained citizen has no need or reason to have access to things like automatic weapons (basically any weapon banned in the U. S. in the status quo). This is what the police are for. He also concedes that, while not a perfect system (as it does involve human beings), it is far superior to a free-for-all system. 3. I was using hyperbole to point out how silly your argument was. =P If we want to be technical about it, 5 MPH would actually be far less safe, as many more people would be encouraged to speed at that point, and our roads would inevitably be more congested. Furthermore, I would bet money road rage would skyrocket. I know mine would! But, on the more serious side, the most important part of that argument was the point that my opponent concedes: human beings are naturally unpredictable and not always rational or concerned with the safety of those around them. This is why we have laws in the first place. PS: As for absolute bans on weapons, that's a mischaracterization of the laws. There are absolute bans on classes/types of weapons (depending on how dangerous they are), but there is no absolute ban on guns as a whole. Obviously, people in all states can own firearms. Which ones is the question.