Everyone should have the right to keep and bear arms.

Unfortunately, my opponent has forfeited this round. He could have wrote as much as he can, and left a simple sentence stating that he was unable to post a full argument and will return for the next round. Due to his lack of time, I will forgive him and in the fairness of debate and in the hope that my opponent will return for Round 4, I will not post new points. However, I will elaborate on my arguments so that this round won't be wasted. 1. Simply declaring something illegal does not eliminate it. Children and Gun Violence: According to the latest national data released in 2002, 3,012 children and teens were killed by gunfire in the United States in a single year. According to Children's Defense Fund and National Center for Health Statistics, at least 4 to 5 times as many kids and teens suffer from non-fatal firearm injuries. American and Gun Violence: According to Centers for Disease Control. American children are more at risk from firearms than the children of any other industrialized nation. In a single year, firearms killed no children in Japan, 19 in Great Britain, 57 in Germany, 109 in France, 153 in Canada, and 5,285 in the United States. For further information, go to http://www.neahin.org... The statistics basically states that the United States have the right to keep and bear arms and therefore, the United States have more cases of gun violence that any other industrialized nation. If the United States were to have a gun ban, we would have less homicidal cases. "Banning guns has not prevented violent crime in Great Britain." Great Britain is not the only country to have a gun ban. Japan has a gun ban too. Japan's crime rate is very low, and its gun crime rate virtually nothing. The police, the military and hunters are the only group that is allowed to posses guns is hunters, and that possession is strictly circumscribed. Civilians are not allowed to obtain handgun target licenses and laws have harshly restricted possession of guns to hunters. In 1985, only 35 crimes,, were committed with hunting guns. Since the Japanese crime rate is dramatically lower than the U.S. rate, Tokyo, the world's major industrialized city have suffered only 40 muggings per year per one million inhabitants. Robbery is almost about rare as murder. Japan's annual robbery rate is 1.8 per 100,000 inhabitants; America's is 205.4. To compare a society with and without guns is like the idiom "comparing apples and oranges." One culture cannot simply adopt laws from different cultures. America culture simple takes workplace safety less seriously than the Japanese business. The Japanese perceive no need to own a gun for individual self-defense because the crime rate is so extraordinarily low. In other words, for the Japanese, it is not the presence or absence of guns that matters, but how they are treated. But to the Americans, liberty is much more important and it includes having guns. The gun ban is readily obeyed in Japan, but is massively resisted wherever it appears in America. In order for gun bans to work, America has to limit its liberties and rights in an attempt to adopt the Japanese culture. Gun laws of Japan are a part of an authoritarian philosophy of government that is fundamentally at odds with America's traditions of liberty. Japan functions without a right to bear arms and without other rights as well. What I'm basically saying is that because the United States have so many rights and liberties such as the right to keep and bear arms, America has became the world's freest, most uncontrolled gun culture for over 300 years. As a result, America has more gun violence than any other industrialized nation. For more information, go to http://www.davekopel.com... When America has a gun ban, it would only work if the U.N. have every single guns worldwide under their control. As I already stated, if no criminals have access to guns, the gun violence will sharply drop. Unlike Japan, America cannot control its people to stop using guns due to its different culture from Japan. However, if guns didn't exist, criminals will have to seek other methods to kill people. I doubt that any other weapon is more efficient on killing more people faster than guns. 2. Weapons have commercial interests There are two entrenched interests that have opinions about the gun industry: (a) participants in the industry, and (b) people affected by the deaths attributable to gun violence. These interests conflict as they involve large amounts of money, long-held (historically) belief systems, and the deaths of loved family members. It can also apply to the tobacco and the alcohol industries. They don't care about who dies when people use their products. They just want the money. In addition, people who have easy availability of these killing machines from these gun industries made it easy for them to kill a lot of people. Self-defense weapons can have commercial interest if guns were banned. Gun bans would result in more progression of self-defense weapons if people would manufacture them instead of guns. 3. Violence does not even require weapons. Guns are more effective on committing murder than a taser gun, a self-defense weapon. Although tasers are lethal when abused, I'm sure that tasers can't kill people as fast as guns. Self-defense weapons are made to be less lethal than firearms. Stun guns have soared in popularity as a nonlethal alternative to bullet-firing gun Since tasers came into widespread use to stun suspects, law enforcers have counted more than 180 deaths in the years. 180 deaths from tasers is a joke compared to gun statistics which include about 10,000 murders are committed using firearms annually. For more information, go to http://www.yourlawyer.com... Homicidal data states that more murders were committed by firearms than any other weapon. If we have a gun ban, the total firearms incidents would sharply decrease due to the decreased availability of guns. Knives or cutting instruments, blunt objects (clubs, hammers, etc.), and personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.) will be the top causes of homicidal cases once the gun ban has been implemented. They are only half the number of cases of firearm incidents. Therefore, if we have a gun ban, we can predict to lower homicidal rates by half or more. For more information, go to http://www.fbi.gov... The most important point about is that we have better substitutes to firearms for self-defense. Those include tear gas, tasers, and peppermint spray. Declaring guns illegal will reduce the number of homicidal cases. I hope that lack of time won't still persist as a problem for my opponent in the next round.