Resolved: Assault weapons should be banned for civilian ownership.

As per agreed-upon structure, this will be my closing speech. I will rebut his responses to cross examination questions and finish off my arguments in this closing speech. First, I would like to address some of my opponent's cross-examination responses. 1) The first immediate issue with my opponent's response is that he stated "the shooter is concealing the weapon. " To anyone with a decent amount of knowledge of these particular firearms, they would know this is impossible even with something like a trench coat. A true assault rifle is classified as a "long gun," meaning it is bulky, heavy, and, as the name suggests, long. It is not a weapon that is easily concealed like a pistol. While personal defense weapons and submachine guns are semi-concealable, even in these cases it is not easily concealed and is likely to stand out. In addition, the weapons used in the commonly-reported mass shootings are not PDWs or SMGs, and are, in the cases where "assault weapons" are used, more commonly AR-15's or AK-47's. The other issue with my opponent's response to the first question is that he believes that "these shooters are stressed and believe they have less time than they actually do," which is completely false. The majority of these situations involve completely insane murderers who do not care in the slightest if they are caught by police. For example, in the Aurora Movie Theater shooting, James Holmes simply turned himself over to the cops as soon as they arrived. At Sandy Hook, Adam Lanza took his own life after killing his mother and the schoolchildren. Clearly these murderers do not care if they are caught by police. Their goal is not usually to escape. 2) I do not understand what my opponent is trying to say. As I already explained, banning rifles with calibers "greater than 9 mm" would not affect common assault weapons, which are usually 5.56 mm or 7.62 mm. As far as "assault shotguns" go, there are only two models that I am aware of, only one of which is even legal for civilians to own. The AA-12 is fully automatic only, and since it was made after the 1986, it is already illegal for any civilians to own. The Saiga-12, on the other hand, is semi-automatic and thus legal, but unless modified significantly after-market, it is not only horribly expensive but notoriously unreliable. 3) Even after outright admitting that this would ban common pistols, my opponent still supports a ban on all weapons with a magazine capacity greater than ten rounds. The most common calibers of handguns capable of holding greater than ten rounds are the .22 and the 9 mm, both of which are extremely popular for both self-defense and target shooting. 4) Once again, my opponent fails to show any accurate knowledge of the weapons he is attempting to ban. I am unaware of any true handgun that possesses a barrel shroud, since they are so short. A barrel shroud on a handgun would simply add unnecessary weight for no person since one does not hold the barrel when firing a handgun. For this reason, my opponent is incorrect in stating that handguns would at all be affected by this ban. 5) While superficially true, the amount of magazines that could be carried on a person regardless of whether they are ten- or thirty-round magazines is irrelevant in most mass-shooting situations. The few seconds it takes to switch magazines would not tangibly affect the number of deaths in a situation such as a school shooting. A magazine weighs only a few ounces, or about a pound if it is loaded. The only thing limiting magazine carrying capacity is the number of pockets on the shooter's clothes. Also, there are probably tens if not hundreds of millions of so-called "high-capacity" magazines in circulation currently. Banning those would simply be impractical. For instance, police Constitutionally require a warrant, issued by a judge, to search private property, with that warrant stating exactly what to search for and where to search for it. In other words, eliminating "high-capacity" magazines is simply impractical since police cannot just search a house because the house MIGHT possess a magazine with a capacity greater than ten rounds. Reasonable suspicion is required to even obtain a warrant. I would like to finish my speech by explaining exactly how the definition of "assault weapon" came up. "Assault weapon" is an invented term. It was created by the anti-gun lobby in order to make weapons that are really no more dangerous than Grandpa's old hunting rifle sound "scary. " Although I have been using the term "assault weapon" and "assault rifle" interchangeably throughout this debate, neither one is technically accurate. "Assault rifles" are either select-fire or fully-automatic rifles, which have been banned for civilian transfer since 1986. What we have been debating is more correctly termed a "modern sporting rifle" since that is what it is most commonly used for: modern sports. As stated in my opening speech, the modern sporting rifle is one of three critical weapons used in three-gun competitions (the other two are a shotgun and handgun of any sort). Also used for hunting and general target shooting, modern sporting rifles are so favored because of their versatility. Would you rather have to purchase a rifle for big-game hunting, a handgun for self defense, and a shotgun for small-game hunting, or a single weapon that can accomplish all of the above? Many of us can't afford or do not want to spend the money on three different guns, so we purchase a single weapon, known as an "assault rifle," to accomplish all of the above. My opponent has failed to put forth any reasonable arguments as to why these weapons are any more deadly than a hunting rifle. While it may very well be true that a mass shooting using an assault weapon will result in more deaths on average than using a pistol, the same could be said of ANY rifle. They have bigger bullets; thus they are likely to cause more deaths. And yet I have yet to hear any people mention banning a .30-06, because, rather simply, it doesn't "look" scary. I appreciate that both my position on the gun control debate at large and my opponent's are both aimed at saving lives. However, banning assault weapons is unlikely to result in many, if any, lives saved. The previous Federal assault weapons ban is a case in point. It failed so miserably because it was trying to solve what is essentially a non-issue. While assault weapons are occasionally used in crime, this use is dwarfed by the deaths occurring from handguns, a significantly less controversial subject. Put rather simply, the most effective argument for civilians being allowed to own assault weapons as defined is that there isn't really a good argument against it. I thank my opponent and readers for considering my arguments, and I look forward to seeing my opponent's concluding speech. Thank you. . http://reason.com... . http://www.nytimes.com...