Citizens Should Be Permitted To Own Guns

Thank you LaL36 and I hope for a constructive debate. What I mean when I say that there are more benefits than harms from citizen gun ownership means that I would argue that less crimes are committed and less people die each years as a result of private firearm ownership. This sounds ridiculous to some people but let's walk through why this is. First, you claim that about 30,000 people die each year from guns. Let's break this number down into it's three categories, gun accidents, gun suicides, and gun murders. Gun Accidents: 613 in 2007Gun Suicides: 16,883 in 2006Gun Murders: 10,886 in 2008 (or 8,583 in 2011)http://www.justfacts.com... (see accidents and crime and self-defense)http://lostallhope.com...http://www.fbi.gov..."...any deaths that have resulted with guns would not have happened."The implication I got from this statement is that if we banned guns all deaths that were accomplished with guns wouldn't have occurred, or 30,000 less people would die each year. This is simply false, even if it did decrease the number of people who died there would still be some people who substituted guns for other methods. If someone premeditates a murder, instead of using a gun they would use some other object such as a knife or a bat. Let's look at each category.Gun Accidents:Very few people die from accidental gun discharges, and surprisingly Australia saw an increase in accidental gun deaths after their 1996 gun ban. Would less people die accidentally if we banned all guns? Probably a little bit. We have to consider that sometimes people who suffer from gun accidents may already be accident prone, but I'm inclined to agree that we will see a small decrease in accidental deaths if we banned guns. Let's give it the benefit of the doubt and say all 613 people wouldn't die if we banned guns. http://www.gunsandcrime.org... Please note that gunsandcrime.org is a pro gun website, but their suicide rate checks out on the Australian Bureau of Statistics and I haven't found another website that displays the murder and robbery rates of Australia after the gun ban. Gun SuicidesNow we enter a very controversial question as to whether or not someone has the right to commit suicide. I don't believe this, so let's assume no. Would we see a decrease in suicides if we banned guns? The evidence for this isn't as clear as we would like. It appears that MAYBE the suicide rates in Australia and Britain decreased a little after their gun bans, but not by much. We also can't forget to factor in other reasons why suicide rates may change, such as economic recoveries/recessions as well as a decreasing youth concentration. Personally, I believe we would see a small decrease in the total suicides committed if we banned guns, but there would be a high rate of substitution for other means (such as hangings and cliff-jumping). NOTE: A decreasing youth population refers to a society progressively getting older. Most crimes, murders, and suicides are committed by youths, so when you have less youths you have less crimes, murders and suicides. http://www.gunsandcrime.org...http://www.bbc.co.uk...\Gun MurdersIf we banned all guns then it makes sense that we wouldn't see any gun murders. This does NOT mean less people are being killed however, because people will substitute for other methods. Human beings have been killing each other for a very long time, we will still find ways to murder one another. What I cannot argue is that guns most certainly make it MUCH easier to kill other people. However, they also make it MUCH easier for private citizens to defend themselves, and the extra lives saved from defensive gun uses must be weighed against the extra number of murders caused by private gun ownership. First, let's consider Australia and Britain after their gun bans. After Britains 1997 handgun ban, they actually saw an increase in their total murder rate. Given the rarity of British firearm ownership, I doubt the gun ban had much of an effect on the murder rate, but what is apparent is that the total people killed did not decrease after their gun ban. http://www.justfacts.com... (see the section on Britain)After the Australian 1996 gun ban, their murder rate increased until about 2001, and then began a slight decrease. Given the fluctuation of other factors that influence the murder rate (drug use and the concentration of youths), its unclear whether or not the murder rate increased because of the gun ban or if it decreased 5 years later because of the gun ban. What is clear is that it didn't have a very strong effect, positive or negative, on the total murder rate. We must also consider that Australians did not use guns for self-defense quite as often as Americans currently do. NOTE: Australia did not completely ban private firearm ownership, but far fewer people owned guns and heavy restrictions were placed on owning guns. http://www.gunsandcrime.org...In both Australia and Britain, it isn't completely clear if gun bans had any positive effects. What is clear is that the substitution rate for other means of violence is pretty high. American Gun Crime and Firearm Self-DefenseOne of the biggest obstacles for establishing the net effect of gun ownership in America is that most cases of defensive gun use go unreported. Typically all that is needed is to show the perpetrator the gun and they run away, and then if the would-be victim reports the crime they may face expensive court costs as well as potential criminal charges in order to prove they were justified in threatening with deadly force. Additionally, many defensive gun uses are probably illegal, but not necessarily immoral. An example could include a women illegally carrying a concealed handgun to defend herself against a rapist. What she did was most certainly illegal, but if it prevented her from being raped then it was not immoral. As a result, we have to refer to surveys to determine the number of defensive gun uses (DGU's) that occur in the US. Here is a list of estimated defensive gun uses per year by the survey source, as well as the estimated crimes committed with firearms. Firearm Murders: 10,886Estimated Firearm Crimes: 436,000http://www.justfacts.com...DGU'sKleck & Gertz (1995): 2,100,000-2,500,000. Estimated 162,000 "would have died had no gun been present"Center for Disease Control (1994): 498,000 Burglary Defenses Cook & Ludwig (1997): 1,500,000http://www.saf.org...http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... (see page 9)Most people argue that, given the smaller sample sizes of the studies, these are overestimates. From what I've read the typical estimated number of DGU's per year is about 1 million, compared to approximately 500,000 firearm crimes committed per year. If we look at Kleck's study where he it says that 162,000 people would have died had a gone not been present, even if this figure is only 10% true it still outweighs the approximate 10,000 firearm murders per year. If we factor in the small number of suicides and accidental deaths that may be prevented from banning guns, this is still outweighed by the sheer number of lives saved from defensive gun use. Unless I'm mistaken LaL36, 162,000 is a larger number than 30,000, so I haven't lost quite yet. I'll get into some of the studies and statistics as to why guns arguably deter the total crimes committed in the next round. In conclusion, guns are used defensively far more often than they are used to commit crimes with, and the lives saved from defensive gun use is greater than the extra lives lost from the private ownership of guns.