Res: The United States should institute a ban on automatic and semi-automatic firearms.

I would first like to apologize if my opponent misunderstood any facts that I have posted previously. I clearly stated that "It is estimated between 3 million to 3.5 million guns are circulating in private ownership", while some figures below this did contain typos which I apologize for, this was clearly stated. I also cited a source to back up this statement. I will now take the time to make sure my opponent understand what private ownership is. Private Ownership : noun 1. the fact of being owned by a private individual or organization, rather than by the state or a public body Now that we have established that, I would first like to address his point about a Gun buy back program. He states " A Harvard University study found the buy-back to have reduced gun owning citizens by 20%, almost halving the total number of gun-owning households (1). In the US, this would eliminate nearly 60,000,000 guns." To me this argument is a fallacy within itself. The way it is stated is even illogical. If the buy back program actually did reduce gun owning citizens by 20 percent, how could it be possibly presented that it halved the number of Gun owning households? By definition a citizen is a resident of that country.So let us take this argument into consideration. Each and every "gun owning citizen" is a party of a "gun owning household". so using sheer logic would it not be easier to assume that if 20 percent of citizens turned in Guns by using the buy back program that nearly the number of "gun owning homes" would decrease by a similar, maybe slightly higher amount. Pros argument states that there is a 30 percent difference in the two, which would be in the millions. We both came up with entirely different numbers. My surveys as posted along with multiple other sites show that the buy back in Australia decreased the total number of guns by around 10 percent in some cases, and that is being generous. I will say this number constantly changes by which source you use, so for the sake of argument I will use pros argument of 20 percent. The first thing we must recognize is that different countries have an entirely different legal system along with a different number of people within the population. Pros argument is essentially, If it worked in Australia it can work here. If we took that line of thinking and applied it to other topics of politics such as health care, we could try and mimic Canada but again this is illogical to make that assumption. so let us take the 20 percent mark. Even if as pro states "this would eliminate nearly 60,000,000 guns.", because of the population difference why this could make a dent, still leaves around 260 million more guns in the hands of Citizens. To put this is simple terms that is still nearly 100 times the amount of Guns that are circulation in private ownership within Australia. So to assume because Australia gained a decrease in crime so we will do the same is an error in reasoning. Also bear in mind a Gun buy back program is optional. We have around 15 states(mainly southern ones), that are around 80-90 percent opposed to a gun ban. Others are split or are near even(New jersey as he stated is one of the states is primarily liberal, he is not accounting for the other states which are conservative and would not so happily hand over fire arms). So to assume this will play out the way it did in Australia, as i have stated many times is illogical. He then states that banning guns is within means of the constitution. It clearly states(I also find no need to cite this source because it is common knowledge), "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." No matter how Pro chooses to play semantics this argument stands without me having to build on it alot. This right is promised to us within the framework of our nation. I will add this point to further demonstrate this to demonstrate what would happen if we were to take away guns from citizens. In 1982, the city of Chicago instituted a ban on handguns. This ban limited civilians from possessing handguns except for those registered with the city government prior to the law. After this law was legally initiated, the number of murders committed with hand guns increased 40 percent. That is not just a small step in the wrong direction, it is a giant leap backwards. Many other states have experienced the same thing with limited conceal carry permits. When you take the permits away, the number of crimes increase because there is no way for a citizen to defend himself and also criminals have no reason to fear doing crimes because they know that no one is armed. I think it is perfectly logical, in fact I think it is common sense to conclude that without a way for citizens to defend themselves crime rates will increase because criminals have no deterrent. My opponent then admits that people are the primes cause of Gun related deaths. He then admits however that Guns are a catalyst for crimes, which I 100 percent agree with him on. The issue with this argument falls back to the other. Hypothetically if you remove guns from private ownership there is no deterrent for the criminal. He states by banning certain types of gun, a criminal will loose his driving force to commit crimes because he will not have the means to commit then. Since logically criminals operate outside of the law, we have no reason to believe they will abide by it and not own semi auto or fully auto hand guns or rifles. Whether we ban them from citizens or not , criminals will still have them. Even if pro is elected president and institutes his beloved Gun buy back program, we still will have over 260 million guns in private ownership which are by all means available to criminals. As i have stated this argument presents a bigger problem, it takes away the deterrent. As we can obliviously see, prison is not a good enough deterrent due to the mass amount of murders that happen on a daily basis. If you take away someones right to defend themselves, you are removing the shackles from criminals and making innocent civilians easy targets. Pro also agrees that my solution to stop all distribution to large magazine capacity weapons to solution is an entirely viable argument, he believes his argument is a means to a better end. While he has offered no argument to disprove my logic that banning large magazines on weapons is a bad idea, and I in turn have refuted and tore down his statements, I believe we logically can conclude that pros argument is not sound. I have shown you that banning semi auto and fully automatic weapons will in term accomplish hardly nothing, and do more harm than it causes. I have supported this by using multiple facts to support my theories as I addressed pros incomplete proposals and rebuttals. I also have offered a viable medium for both sides of the table. So for Pro to prove me wrong he must take each and every point i provided and tear it down and provide a viable alternative, supported by hard evidence. I now turn the floor back to my opponent. http://www.justfacts.com... http://www.propublica.org...