Bluesteel v. Mikal, Resolved: The US should adopt a ban on assault weapons similar to Australia's.

Overview/CaseIneffective - I managed to tackle almost all of blues contentions in my ineffective argument. I noted how AW’s (including pistols in a broad definition) were not used in the majority of violent crimes. I also argued how gun ownership and gun controls, on average, do not affect the overall crime rate. In many cases, gun controls increase the crime rate [1]. The fact is, I debunked both homicides and mass shootings. Even assuming that his plan would reduce deaths in a targeted area, it would not affect the *overall* murder rate. It doesn’t matter if it decreases a specific crime. It is the *overall* effect which is important. And that effect, as demonstrated, is essentially zero. Inflammation / Property Rights - I cited an incident that occurred in the bundy ranch, and Blue responded to this by calling them nutjobs. That is not a rebuttal to the argument. He keeps comparing Australia to America which can’t be done. America has nearly 100 times the amount of guns that Australia does, and we are immersed in a gun culture. Saying Australia has some gun advocates that adhered to the Australian ban is not answering the primary contention that I presented. The bundy ranch incident happened over property rights. America has never had a compulsory buy back, and people are already opposed to the idea. There would be a large scale fall out if people are forced to give up guns under a mandatory ban. This entire thing is addressed as a Constitutional Issue. Recently it was ruled that people had the right to bear arms under traditionally lawful purposes such as self defense [2]. The issue is not about whether bluesteel or I perceive it as constitutional , but whether the masses perceive it as such. People think it is their God given right to bear arms in America, and the fall out and inflammation from a mandatory buyback would have long term negative effects that far outweigh any good that *may* come. 1) Mexican Cartels - This was essentially responded to under the black market argument. Cartels would merely substitute their source of weaponry. If the US no longer provides weapons, they will use the current weapons stock in circulation and would easily obtain weapons through other, more obscure, sources. Banning something does not mean it simply disappears. The cartels would simply obtain firearms from foreign countries with thriving black market industries.R1) Assault WeaponsThe point I made about fists was not to be taken literally, but to show that if he is allowed to dictate the definition of what assault weapons are, he can alter it and move the goal posts in order to benefit his case. Again I acknowledge that every single state or ban defines the word assault weapon differently. The difference is his plan picked the lowest point and aimed at it. As I cited, most bans and regulations do not encompass LCMS under the criteria of his plan. If a mass majority has a consensus on what an assault weapon is, and there is one case that differs. Making a plan under the assumption that *one case differed*, so I can make my plan however I want and define assault weapons in any way I see fit, opens up an infinite regress as to what an assault weapon is. More importantly, I noted that even if he is awarded the LCM ban it virtually changes nothing. From my previous source we can see a rebuttal to his mass shooting argument. Most mass shooting are done by pistols, and most of the pistols tend to be revolvers, 9ms, or 9m glocks. All of these can have 10 round to 30 round magazines. Just like the Aurora shooting if an assault weapon is not available, shooters will just default to weapons likes glocks with 10 round magazines to do the killing with. (The aurora shooter actually did this). He is saying you can mitigate harm by banning assault rifles but that is false, because even if you can mitigate it a little by banning rifles and other AWS, people will just default back to whatever weapon is not banned and in the end it would have no effect. You can see this from the Australia buy back study, that showed the jump in different types of gun ownership after the compulsory buy back and where 2 mass shootings occurred with the non banned guns. He is proposing for a ban that would solve nothing, and just make people kill with different types of weapons. R2) Ineffective R3) BuybackR4) HomicidesBlue claims the UK had only mass shooting. Again, a small portion of the picture. The entire picture, as previously argued, shows how the *overall* crime rates have increased. The net effect is more important than small category of crime. The definition of a mass shooting is not actually defined by the FBI, so it is difficult to put a broad definition as Blue does. Blue again attempts to garner emotional support due to a horrific mass shooting. The fact is, the overall death rate did not decline, as demonstrated by the most comprehensive study on Australian gun laws [3]. Blue has yet to respond to this study, despite it being cited every round. Blue’s definition would include a handgun ban. If handguns are a deterrent, then you would see an *increase* in crime if they were removed from the populace. He then states the study did not control for socioeconomic barriers. It controlled for arrest rates, execution rates, unemployment rate, poverty rates, population levels, race, sex, and age levels [4]. US and UK crime levels did not follow a close pattern. In the 1980 - 1996, English crime increased, whereas the US crime rate was fairly stable and declined at the end of the period [5]. Crime does, in fact, change due to other factors. That is what I have actually been pointing out, as I have noted firearms have no effect on overall crime rate. To reiterate, the strongest empirical evidence suggests that guns do not increase crime. According to the research, “most gun control restrictions generally have no net effect on violence rates” [6]. I have made this point throughout the debate, and blue has not responded to the extensive research backing this hypothesis.Blue claims two more things. (1) Higher capacity weapons are deadlier, and (2) targeted decreases occurred. As previously noted, assault weapons are almost ever used in crime [1]. Therefore, any ban will have little effect on crime. He also drops a more comprehensive 2004 study which I cited, and it noted how the ban had no overall effect on crime rates. Targeted decreases are irrelevant, as the *overall* rate of crime did not change, and may have increased.Blue claims that crime fell after Australia’s crime rate. But right after claims crime changes due to factors other than gun ownership. Indeed, it is possible that a totally different factor caused the crime decrease. As I noted, you need a control group, for example New Zealand. Australia’s crime increased after the 1996 law, and then decreased *slower* than New Zealand’s. This indicates that the law actually increased the overall rate. Under Blue’s definition, a pistol would be considered an AW, meaning his laws could increase armed robbery rates. R5) Pistols vs Rifles His source showed that a shotgun causes more damage than a pistol, it also showed that a shooter would switch back to a pistol if they had no other choice. This goes to show that people will use whatever weapon they have to cause harm, if they want to cause it. He cited that bans like the one in his plan stop mass shootings. He said Australia had not had one mass shooting after the ban, which was false. They had 2, and the shooter used whatever guns were open to him, and had the same amount of impact as before the AW ban. Meaning a ban similar to bluesteels was passed banning AWS, and mass shootings still occurred causing nearly the same amount of damage as before the ban. This point goes to me as his proposal would be ineffective to say the least. [1] Keck, Point Blank[2] http://tinyurl.com...[3] http://tinyurl.com...[4] Lot, Bias Against Guns[5] Joyce, Guns and Violence [6] http://tinyurl.com...