Gun control

Firstly, to disprove my opponent"s assertion, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and Japan, all countries with more gun control laws have significantly lower crime rates than America, proving, in fact, it will lower the crime rate instead of raising it. Also, my opponent did not back up their assertion with any evidence so it can be dismissed until they provide some. Secondly, this debate will be weighed on a utilitarian basis, the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people. Thirdly gun control will be defined as an assault weapon ban, a background check, and a mental health check. My arguments are; 1. Common sense gun regulation lowers the violent crime rate 2. Common sense gun regulation lowers the overall suicide rate 3. Guns make everyone less safe My first argument is that common sense gun regulation lowers the violent crime rate. This argument uses the same evidence as my refutation of my opponent"s assertion. In 2014, 33,599 Americans lost their life to guns, that same year 6 Japanese citizens were killed using guns. To break that down another way on average in America that year 92.05 Americans lost their life to guns each day while on average in Japan everyday 0.016 lost their life to guns. My opponent may point out that American is a bigger country than Japan so of course, the American total would be higher or that the first statistic was gun deaths, not murders. To address this issue that year the homicide rate per 100,000 people in Japan was .4 and in America, it was 4.75, so in America that year you were 11.875 more times to get murdered. In Australia that year, the murder with gun rate was 0.14, and Ireland was 0.0086. (source nationmaster. com) Since all these countries with much lower gun related crimes than us and have much stricter gun laws than us it is very easy to see the causation. If you weigh this on a utilitarian basis, it's obvious that it does more good for more people to being saving their and their loved one's lives and make them jumps through some hoops to buy a gun and limit their selection than the reverse. My second argument is that common sense gun regulation will lower overall suicide rate. Suicide is the 10th largest cause of death in America, each year it claims the lives of 42,773 Americans. Firearms cause about 50% of Suicide. While making tougher to get guns will not stop people from committing suicide entirely, guns are one of the most successful ways of committing suicide. Things like pills to OD on are harder to get your hands on and have a lower success rate. Making guns harder to get would overall lower the suicide rate because it's harder to get your hands on the means and remaining methods post a lower rate of success. Suicide is an ugly thing helping people avoid it, and giving the help; they need instead it incredibly important. (source AFSP) My third argument is that guns make everyone less safe. A study from October of 2014 analyzed data from 27 developed nations to examine the impact of firearm prevalence on the mortality rate. It found an extremely strong direct relationship between the number of firearms and firearm deaths. This evidence proves a positive relationship between guns and gun deaths. (source nih. gov) Another study from the FBI found you are 3x more likely to die from a gun if you own one. This evidence disproves the common myth that guns make you safer. So if we can limit the amount of guns that are in our society and make sure they are in the right hands we can make our society a safer place. I have so far provided three fleshed out arguments as to why we would be far safer with some common sense gun laws. My opponent, on the other hand, has provided on an assertion which they failed to back up with evidence. Thank you, and I hope we can have a productive debate