Guns should be banned to the general public

Resolved: Guns should be banned to the general public. I affirm the above resolution and argue that with certain exceptions, the sale and ownership of guns ought to be condemned. As my opponent has not offered any resolutions in his constructive, any definitions provided here will be in use for the entire debate. gun: any portable firearm, as a rifle, shotgun, or revolver (Random House) should: synonymous with ought--to be bound by moral obligation banned: censure[d], condemn[ed], or disapprov[ed] of; prohibited(American Heritage) general: of, pertaining to, or true of such persons or things in the main, with possible exceptions (RH) public: a particular group of people with a common interest, aim, etc. (RH) In this case, I shall interpret the general public to mean those who are not either in the armed forces or are recreational shooters, though the ownership of guns in the latter would be highly restricted as well. militia: a part of the organized armed forces of a country liable to call only in emergency Observation 1: My opponent's stated resolution involves the word "should." Because of this, the debate therefore centers around the moral question of whether or not guns should be condemned/prohibited. Observation 2: Because the focus of this debate is the morality behind the use of guns, practical applications of the resolution need not be considered. Observation 3: In the light of the definitions stated above, con must show that, in general, from a moral perspective, guns should be approved of (in a negation of the disapproval expressed by pro). Pro must show that because guns and their uses are immoral, they are objects of disapproval and their sale and use should therefore be prohibited. I will first present my contentions and then negate my opponent's arguments. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins." In this debate, one's supposed right to own firearms ends when one runs the risk of causing harm to others. To tacitly allow firearms to be used against the general public is therefore morally unjustified. C1: Guns are used with intent to harm others. Guns are frequently used by criminals in attacks upon citizens--roughly 900,000 cases annually. Of these cases, 18000 result in death by homicide. The large number of gun owners makes gun-related violence frequent. By prohibiting the possession of guns except by those authorized to do so as a matter of duty--soldiers, police officers, etc.--one may effectively eliminate these incidents. Guns are also used in suicides, about 14000 annually. While Mill's harm principle states that the government cannot intervene in personal decisions, government power can be invoked in cases where the action causes harm to others. Suicides not only harm the person committing the action, but those round the person, whether emotionally (in the loss of a loved one) or physically (in the case of murder-suicides). It is therefore morally justified to try and prevent suicides by banning guns. The comparatively high rate of gun-deaths per owner, .0004% (see below for derivation), or 31,000 per year, is appalling. The incidence of gun-caused injuries is even higher, at 115000, or .0015%. Guns exist with the intent to harm (with the exception of sport shooting, etc.), not to help. Finally, guns are frequently used in suicide and crimes, causing injury and death to all. It is not only the gun owners who are affected by gun possession; it is innocent victims who bear the consequences of gun usage. In view of this, there is a moral prerogative to condemn and prohibit the sale and ownership of guns to the general public. My Opponent's Case: C1: Simply because something is written into a country's constitution does not immediately make it moral. Attempting to imply as such is nothing more than an argument from authority, and the point is therefore moot. I will, however, address the content of my opponent's contention as if it were valid. The wording of the Second Amendment show that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" is directly linked to the existence of "a well-regulated militia." I agree that the militia, by the nature of their purpose, can own guns. However, by my definition of a militia as a "reserve" (i.e. not active) and the fact that the militia is not in the main, the militia is not a part of the general public, and thus the resolution has no application in this area. C2: My opponent, in stating that one ought to own a gun in order to protect oneself against crime, is ignoring the fundamental issue at hand. The reason that gangs are in possession of guns to the degree that they are is that there have been only token restrictions on gun sales in the United States. All the same, evidence suggests that even when people are permitted to possess guns, their actual usefulness in self-defense is very limited. From 1987 to 1990, for example, firearms were employed in self defense in less than .2% of crimes. For comparison, during that same time period, there were roughly 2.7 million fatal and nonfatal gun-related crimes. The question here becomes, "Does the extremely small benefit of self-protection outweigh the real and present threat of millions of gun-related crimes which would likely not have occurred had guns been outlawed to begin with?" (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...) C3: This contention is irrelevant to the debate--the practical application of the resolution has no impact upon the inherent morality therein. C4: Multiple sources suggest that the number of gun owners in the United States is 80 million. Using this figure, one divides the number of gun related fatalities by the number of owners. The percent mortality rate is .00039%. When one performs the same calculation for car-related deaths to find a mortality rate of .00024%. Although the number of car deaths may be greater, consider that one is 1.625 times more likely to die from a gun than from a car. (http://webapp.cdc.gov...) Furthermore, the fundamental difference between a gun and a car is that the former exists for the purpose of inflicting damage--in this case, on a person--whereas the latter exists to move objects from one location to another. C5: I have shown that the use of guns in self defense compared to that of those in committing crimes does not even begin to compare, as the latter dwarfs the former in scope. The number of people reliant on hunting game for food is not statistically significant. The general public does not obtain its food primarily by hunting, so my opponent's baseless claim has no relevance to the debate. C6: I agree that skeet shooting or target practice are harmless. Note that "general" has exceptions, and specialist sportsmen and women are exceptions to the rule. In the case of recreation, tightly controlled gun sales in small numbers is permissible, though such guns would come with stringent standards to prevent harm to others. I have shown that gun ownership and use causes injury and death unnecessarily, and to allow gun ownership on a present day scale is inimical to Mill's harm principle and basic ethics. I have shown my opponent's contentions to be false or otherwise irrelevant, completely refuting his case. I now await my opponent's response and cross-ex/clarifications.