3rd DDO Census Debate: Gun Ban

Thanks, Pro!OVERVIEWA. Pro should defend a single, consistent position. Pro has offered a plan and should not make retroactive additions or modifications to it because any changes would involve shifting the goalposts. Any criticism I make could be countered by Pro saying, "oh, well, I am just going to change my plan so that your attacks don't apply." This is not only unfair because it shifts ground, but it creates a time skew in that I am forced to spend more time detailing my positions and responding to the shifting ground than Pro is forced to spend actually shifting the ground. Plus, if Pro makes modifications, I may not have the opportunity to make non-new arguments against them, putting me in a catch-22 situation in terms of wanting to win and wanting to not violate common standards of debate ethics. B. The word "ban" implies confiscation. If you "legally prohibit" the "private ownership of firearms" you are saying that it is illegal to merely own a gun. Thus, anyone owning a gun would either have to surrender their gun or have their gun confiscated. This is a form of theft. Theft is, a priori, immoral, and a clear violation of our property rights, and perhaps also other rights like privacy, freedom, recreation, etc. Therefore, you should presume Con, because if all else is equal, we should still reject theft.THE PLANPro's plan will not change the deeply rooted gun culture present in the US--it will take far more than 20 years to change that. His plan will also, because of its prolonged nature, (1) give the right-wing years to recruit and fear-monger, (2) be met with increasingly frustrated and violent resistance, and (3) be harder to implement because of the risk of changing administrations and rising opposition. FRAMEWORKMeta-EthicsPro writes: "since it is possible that X is objectively wrong then we ought to consider it as objectively wrong so as not to violate morality and moral principles." This conclusion is absurd on its face. Any action has some non-zero probability that it is wrong, ergo, it is always possible that any action is objectively wrong. If it is possible that any action is wrong, and if we ought to consider any action that is possibly wrong as wrong so as to not violate morality, then we must consider ALL actions as morally wrong. This is contradictory, absurd, and illogical, and would put us in a double-bind, since both of our positions are potentially wrong. For this reason, we can reject Pro's meta-ethical "proof." If Pro cannot warrant his meta-ethical system, then he cannot similarly warrant his normative ethical system, since this presupposes moral realism.Normative EthicsA. Pro provides literally zero reason why individual's opinions should matter in society. A hyper-collectivist moral view might disagree, and so Pro cannot simply take it as axiomatic that this is the case. Moreover, even if such opinions mattered, it is a non-sequitur to say that this proves individualism. Certainly, collectivists can acknowledge the importance of the individual while still asserting the primacy of the collective. Pro, in P1 alone, thus commits bare assertion and non-sequitur fallacies. B. Turn: Individualism supports the Con position. "The gist of individualism is, then, that everyone must consent to being used by another. This is because each is important, valuable in his or her own right. And if an individual is important as such, then there is a sphere that constitutes the individual's realm of sovereignty and others ought to respect it...That is exactly why the right to private property is vital. When effectively protected, it secures for human individuals a sphere of personal jurisdiction, the right to acquire and hold the props, as it where, with which to order one's life." [1] Property also offers an essential tool for individuals to pursue their purposes (self-actualization). Thus, individualism supports property rights, and, as, I explained in OVB, Pro violates property rights.C. Pro's weighing calculus is saving lives. If he can't show he saves lives with his plan, he cannot link. PRO's CASEMurder RateA. Pro is committing a correlation/causation fallacy. Just because the bottom 3 countries have fewer guns does not mean that this is the cause of their low gun homicide rate. Norway, Austria, France, Iceland, Australia, Greece, and New Zealand all are among the top 30 gun owning countries in the world, [2] but are in the bottom 19 of Pro's chart. Iceland has virtually no gun homicide rate at all. Israel also has a large number of guns in homes due to military service. And, if you look at homicides per capita [12] versus gun ownership per capita [13] there appears to not even be a correlation--countries like Nigeria, DRC, Brazil, and Russia have few guns, yet many murders, while the opposite is true for Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and Germany. There are three possible takeaways: (1) culture, not gun ownership, causes the correlation (confounding variable), (2) other gun-owning countries have better regulations or training regimes (we can solve the problem by implementing better regulation instead of a ban), and/or (3) there is just no correlation at all, and Pro's chart cherry-picks what nations it looks at.B. The UK is not a good comparison to the US: (1) the UK is an island, making it harder for smugglers to bring illegal guns to the UK market; the US has, on the other hand, extremely porous land boarders that are hard to police; (2) the UK doesn't have the US gun culture; guns in the UK were mostly used for sport and hunting, and it never developed the kind of frontiersman/Revolutionary culture that the US did, where guns were closely connected to personal liberty.C. Banning guns will increase gang violence. Banning products creates black markets for them. Supply and demand indicates that, when demand remains, consumers, particularly in gun-loving societies, will seek other sources of the product. For instance, prohibition in America spurred the growth of gangs (like Al Capone's) which would supply alcohol illegally. "Semi-automatic and automatic firearms are banned [in France], but that hasn't...stopped them in increasing numbers...The numbers of illegal weapons in France have increased by double digits for years." [3] "[G]ang members are increasingly engaging in...weapons trafficking...Criminal gangs commit as much as 80 percent of the crime in many communities." [4] This has two impacts: (a) a gun ban will not necessarily be effective at reducing the number of guns in circulation, and (b) a gun ban will provide a new source of revenue for gangs, especially as more people seek illegal sources of guns because they cannot get them legally. D. Banning guns will increase right-wing violence. Militia groups in the U.S. grew 37% in 2014, and grew significantly also between 2008 and 2011. [5] "That growth is likely to continue as the groups recruit more members with a pro-gun message...[A] gun control movement...is intensifying anti-government rage and will lead to more growth for the groups.' The Bundy Ranch and Oregon Wildlife Reserve examples show that these groups are able to mobilize resources and manpower to contest government authority. Right-wing extremists have actually killed more people since 9/11 than terrorists motivated by al-Qaeda’s ideology. [7] The groups are very well armed, and have "the capacity for a terrorist attack...to be as deadly as any foreign jihadist attack." [8] The impact of this is clear: banning guns creates a political optic that will fuel dangerous, right-wing extremists.E. Guns are key to self-defense. "[V]ictims are hospitalized with an 85% recovery rate; but criminals shot by victims face a 'Hobson’s choice': hospitalization with imprisonment or eschewing medical care at the risk of death. A criminological study found that for those attacked by criminals 'resistance with a gun appears to be the most effective [response]'...The same study also noted that 'the use of a gun by the victim significantly reduces her chance of being injured.' A U.S. National Crime Victimization study concluded that defending against felons with a gun helps victims 65% of the time and make things worse only in about 9% of the time." [9] This has two impacts: (a) gun bans reduce the deterrent effect of gun ownership on crime by removing the threat of the Hobson’s choice, and (b) gun bans remove an effective tool of self-defense from the toolkit.F. Gun bans will be disproportionately enforced in minority communities. "Last year, 47.3 percent of those convicted for federal gun crimes were black--a racial disparity larger than any other class of federal crimes, including drug crimes." [14] This will intensify the cycle of oppression in communities of color.G. Many won't comply with a ban, forcing the USFG to arrest citizens and pay (likely hefty sums) for the operation. AccidentsA. Safety features solve. "Federal law imposes no design safety standards on domestically produced firearms. As a result, many firearms are manufactured and sold in the U.S. without undergoing appropriate safety testing and without including basic safety features." [10] "Although unintentional or accidental shootings account for a small share of firearm related mortality and morbidity, these deaths and injuries are highly preventable through proper design of firearms." [11]B. Accidental deaths are only a small part of the total gun issue, and my other impacts (gangs, right-wing violence, etc.) outweigh.SOURCES1 - http://www.iep.utm.edu...2 - http://tinyurl.com...3 - http://tinyurl.com...4 - http://tinyurl.com...5 - http://tinyurl.com...6 - http://tinyurl.com...7 - http://tinyurl.com...8 - http://tinyurl.com...9 - http://tinyurl.com...10 - http://tinyurl.com...11 - http://tinyurl.com...12 - http://tinyurl.com...13 - http://tinyurl.com...14 - http://tinyurl.com...