July Tournament

Thank you Con for your rebuttals, I will now defend my arguments to the best of my ability. Gun Storage:Con claims that ease of access and gun deaths have no correlation. To demonstrate this; he gives an example of a toddler not able to know the location of a gun because it would be five feet above the ground, out of the toddler’s reach. Yet evidence directly negates Con’s claims,“Approximately one of three handguns is kept loaded and unlocked and most children know where their parents keep their guns. In one 2006 study, 73 percent of children under age 10 reported knowing the location of their parents’ firearms, and 36 percent admitted they had handled the weapons. ”. http://www.cdph.ca.gov...It is hard to believe my opponent’s claim that easy access to guns does not cause gun accidents, when 36% of kids admit to have handled their parents’ weapons. Con then makes three claims about the statement ‘easy access to guns does not cause more deaths’1) it is a bare assertion with no proofIt is simple logic; a troubled person is more likely to commit suicide if they know the location of a gun in their house, and it’s unlocked and loaded than if it is in a storage device, locked and unloaded, and inaccessible. A child is more likely to handle a gun and have an accident if it is in a drawer, unlocked and loaded, than if it is locked away in a storage device, inaccessible. I have provided mountains of evidence from a variety of sources to back up every proposition I have made, it is Con that has made the bare assertion.2) implied concession that the current death tolls by guns are at the maximumI’m not sure what this means. Con is accusing me of somehow mentioning somewhere that ‘gun death tolls are currently at their maximum. ’ This completely false; I never said anything of the sort. Even if there was any truth to this accusation, it does nothing for Con’s case; it is completely irrelevant to the debate and does not impact the resolution.3) is an issue that can be remedied by legislationMy opponent has had 2 rounds to propose legislation, yet has failed to bring any to our attention. After Con makes this claim, you would expect some legislation, he does not provide any. This is merely a claim lacking any sort of evidence that would give it worth. I would like to ask the voters to vote for the case that is clear and straightforward rather than the unstated one. Con then makes an analogy to cars, that cars should be banned because they kill people too. This is a red herring; this has nothing to do with our gun debate. Also, automobiles are transportation vehicles; they are an essential part of life for today’s society, guns are not. But more importantly, we are talking about guns, not cars. Suicide:Con concedes the main point I was trying to make in my argument, the lethality of guns:“Guns are effective in their lethality, there is no denying this”I can say with certainty that without a gun, less people would be successful in suicide. It is simple logic; guns are the most lethal way of suicide (as Con conceded), taking away guns will force people who want to commit suicide to use another method (less lethal method), therefore suicides will be less lethal, and more people will survive them. This then gives victims the chance to recover and get help, and prevent suicide in the future. It is extremely simple and straightforward. Con drops my first argument in the category “Firearms & Suicide”, Con instead brings up statistics which actually support my argument; more guns in the US, and more suicides, less guns in the UK and less suicides. Gun Accidents:Con does two things here; drops my arguments and chooses to attack my numbers instead, and then brings up red herrings. 1) As far as the numbers, I’ll take them; it’s still a lot of people that die from gun accidents.2) Con brings up topics completely irrelevant to the debate. Con makes the argument that poison and ladders kill people as well, so therefore we shouldn’t ban guns. That’s like saying that I shouldn’t save this cat stuck in the tree, because children are hungry in Africa. It is a red herring, and completely irrelevant to the debate. We are talking about guns, not poison and ladders. Homicide:Con drops both my arguments; my argument that a gun escalates a simple crime into a deadly scenario, and that murderers will have to use another, less effective weapon therefore making murder less effective and saving lives. Both these arguments are dropped. Con then attempts to have the best of both worlds. Con suggests that ‘guns in the home have led to a decrease in crime’ yet earlier says that,“Similarly, in a house where the gun in locked in the safe, it is by no means impossible for a teen to acquire said gun. ”If a gun is locked in a safe in the home, it is hard to believe that a resident of the home would be able to run to the safe, put in the combination, take out the gun, and most likely have to load the gun, and then face an attacker who had already entered their house before this entire process even began. If gun owners have the benefit of safe gun storage, they do not have the benefit of deterring crime. Yet if a gun owner has a gun stored improperly, but ready for use, this increases the risk for suicides, gun accidents, etc. Con cannot have both of these benefits. As far as Pro’s statistics, this could be the result of many different scenarios. A change in police funding could be part of it, it could also actually be because of gun ownership rates. According to PEW Research Center (. http://www.people-press.org...), gun ownership has actually decreased slightly over recent years. But the point is that this could come from a variety of different causes. Conclusion:Con has dropped numerous arguments, and even directly conceded a few, while I have defeated each and every one of Con’s. Con has brought up red herrings and irrelevant arguments.