A jolly good debate on gun control

Alright C-dizzle (you don't mind if I call you C-Dizzle?) lets get down to business. My response has, alas not been as swift as a coursing river, but it has the force of a great typhoon and the strength of a raging fire. Somehow, it will make a man out of you.Dear C-DizzleThe type of gun control C-Dizzle appears to arguing for is a restriction of the purchase of automatic weapons and handguns with extended magazines. He proposes that these guns are taken off the market and background checks must occur before gun sales. If he has additional propositions I would request that he clarifies them.My opponents argument is a single point; (By the way I try to keep a rudimentary form of tagging for my own sanity - don't feel you need to do the same)1) These fully automatic and extended clip guns cause more harm to society than other types of guns.He uses statistics and an interesting anecdote to support this claim.I will first attack C-Dizzles use of statistics.He claims; "having a gun in your house is 43 times more likely to accidentally kill a person in the house than an intruder." This statistic does not relate at all to the type of restriction C-Dizzle supports, that is, the restriction of automatic and extended clip weapons. It therefore can be disregarded unless C-Dizzle wishes to change his argument to "all guns should be restricted". I appreciate the amount of self-control it must have required to only use one terrible statistic*, when most debates of this nature are littered with them on either side.I shall now address his anecdote. While it shows something interesting, it hardly supports my opponents argument. He hasn't even demonstrated that any control is necessary, so showing that it is easy to aquire a gun now means nothing!Assertions"This is ridiculous." Really? Why? It has not been demonstrated that any control is required yet, so to imply that this is too little is slightly premature."Countless numbers of lives could be saved if the government would implement more gun safety laws."This is an assertion without warrent. Now to my arguments. I'm not going to argue that guns prevent crime, or that one is safer for carrying a weapon as they are frankly terrible arguments due their impossibility to quantify and how frequently they are tied to absolutely dire statistics. I would request that my opponent recognizes this and does not attempt any of the similarly awful arguments which try to prove things which are impossible to quantify and fairly meaningless in relation to the debate which exist on his side of the debate too.1. Guns are toolsSay I pick up a fully automatic gun. I do not point it at anyone. I do not verbally threaten anyone with it. I do not initiate any act of aggression or violence with it. Despite this, I am still commiting a crime under C-Dizzle's proposed restrictions. This is absurd. A law which criminilizes such a trivial act in which no parties are hurt is the act of a tyrannical government. Guns in and of themselves do not cause harm to others. It has to be used to hurt or threaten someone by an individual. Funnily enough these actions, perprated by the individuals are illegal. Such as armed assualt, or murder. Why is making these actions crimes not sufficient? Making an action which does not inherently harm anyone illegal is pointless.Here is an example to reinforce my point; I'm a fairly large and strong young fellow. I could easily kill most people armed with my 1.2 meter high oak chair. It would be pointless to make owning chairs illegal no matter how many crazed individuals went into the street killing people with their chairs. Instead we make killing people illegal, as that actually is an act of aggression, and isn't particularly good manners.2. Insufficient evidence to suggest that restricting guns would do anythingProhibition creates black markets for those who don't care about things like laws - criminals - and oddly enough they are the type of people more inclined to go around shooting people. In particular the worst class of criminal; those working for the government. They would not need to observe these laws when aquire these guns and would be free to learn how to kill people with them in america before rolling off to kill non-americans in foreign lands.Furthermore, for those who aren't willing to buy things off the black market and don't happen to be lucky enough to be commiting government approved murder, there are economic substitutes for guns. Explosives aren't too hard to make if you have the intent, (basic ingredients found in households) and are just as practical for the purpose of commiting mass murder. 3. The government does not have the moral authority to restrict gun ownershipGuns allow people to resist a tyrannical government. How can a government morally justify restricting liberty in this way?*For those who can't see why that type of statistic makes me want to eat a bucket of KFC (dunno, I'm just hungry):1. The link provided just parrots the statistic without giving any idea of the methodology used to aquire it.2. It is meaningless; so what if people are bad at using tools? If it turns out that people are 43 times more likely to hit their thumb when using a hammer rather than a nail, should we ban hammers?3. Misses the point that guns still can be used for the purpose of defending ones home, regardless of the ineptitude of the user. There are many other sins commiting by the different types of statistics thrown like horse poo in this type of debate, and I hope I don't have to bring attention to their flaws too.Lots of hugsThaddeus