Creating gun control laws in the U.S. without passing an amendment, should not be tolerated.

This is my first debate, and as a result I am not so sharp with the standards. It is also my first debate on DDO, welcome. Since we are dealing with legal issues in this debate the definition "to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another" can be a bit redundant and might get into a purely semantic argument that neither of us should want to do. Instead I propose the definition be amended to "to encroach upon in a way that violates the rights of another. " I will agree to this definition as it should not effect anything previously stated, and my opponent does not wish to engage in semantics. That being said, those were not the only two definitions I lacked in defining. I should have made it clear that this debate is concerned with federal laws. I assumed that the debate was on federal laws since there were no states mentioned in my opponent’s opening argument, so the clarification should not be a problem. I would like to define gun control laws as the typical laws that are either being passed or seriously discussed to be passed in modern America. While I was unaware of these terms, it does not change my attitude towards the debate, nor do I wish to strike out against this clarification though it was not initially stated. While the argument is that it [gun control] should not be tolerated without passing an amendment, arguing the constitutionality is not adequate. Even if my opponent was able to prove that an amendment is not necessary, that does not in turn prove that laws should be tolerated. .. So my opponent needs to concern himself with the purpose of gun control laws as well as the constitutional justification. While I concede that I must not only prove that an amendment is not necessary; I must give a reason for why we should not have to make amendments to create gun control (assuming we have equal burdens of proof), my opponent is mistaken if he believes I must advocate gun control. My opponent's statement was: “Creating gun control laws in the U. S. without passing an amendment, should not be tolerated. ” This statement means that I do not need to prove the effectiveness or the benefits of gun control; I need to prove that there are benefits to allowing it without passing amendments. I did not provide any statistics supporting my claim, because the burden of proof is in the hands of those supporting laws. My opponent made an arbitrary statement that the burden of proof is in the hands of those supporting laws without any reason or conventional set up. The burden of proof is usually either: always affirmative [1], or it is equal [2] Seeing that my opponent did not specify at the beginning of the debate by default I have assumed the argument contained equal weight on both sides, however using my opponents logic: Using the same example, if my opponent was in support of banning silver cars, it is not on me to prove that silver cars are not a hazard " it is on him to prove that they are. If I was in support of making a change in government, I must hold the burden of proof, therefore since he is changing the law, he must maintain the burden. However if my opponent wishes to withdraw this statement I am perfectly willing to assuming an equal burden of proof. There are a few issues with this. One is that simply passing a law does not change things. Even if the intention behind the law is perfect, if it doesn’t effectively accomplish its intended purpose, it still will not do anything. To this point I will simply reference prohibition. We made alcohol illegal, but it didn't stop people from drinking alcohol, it just created a criminal underground that still exists, because there was now a demand for something illegal. Our argument is not on the effectiveness of the gun control therefore this statement is irrelevant. I remind my opponent that our argument is on whether or not we should need to make an amendment to pass gun control. People violate the law, especially those who would be willing to commit crimes with guns. My opponent has admitted that people would be willing to commit crimes with guns. That means that not all guns are used legally and are therefore not all guns or gun owners fall into the Second Amendment protection of “an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes. .. [3]” This makes gun control constitutional, and therefore there is no reason gun control should have to amend the second amendment. Without the need for gun control to pass an amendment, there is no point in passing one as it would merely delay the process of crime prevention as seen in the above paragraph. the ratification process since 1960 has taken anywhere from 100 to 74,003 days [4]. This process on average takes over a year; the need for amendments would decrease efficiency and may cost lives, in a process that does take away rights protected by the constitution. I will agree there are conflicting opinions, I simply maintain there are no statistically significant statistics that prove any effectiveness of these types of laws. My opponent is referring to gun laws effectiveness which is not a subject of this debate. So common use simply is common use in today"s timeframe, not at the time of the ratification of the constitution " this is an important point to understand. I am aware this refers common use in modern times. So it seems that the point my opponent is trying to make is that guns that aren’t in common use, have no protection from the second amendment, but this gets complicated, because some of the factors that affect common use, ie gun selection by law abiding citizens, is the laws that prevent them from buying certain guns. So if we allow laws to limit types of weapons, eventually we'll have a situation where a gun that might have been in common use is not because it is illegal, and thus it isn’t protected by the second amendment. This is somewhat circular. Gun control may not be used on guns “in common use for lawful purposes[3]”. Gun control is used to protect people from guns that cannot be used legally, if a situation arose in which a gun that is banned would be popular had it not be banned, that would suggest that a large amount of people would want to commit themselves to illegal activity, which is a problem in itself. If this is not the case these people would have the right choose from and purchase a plethora of guns. . .. So if there is a reason that certain guns that are needed for self-defense, the court holds that they are protected by the second amendment. There are many examples of necessary uses of guns that were or might become illegal. For example, assault rifles were important for self defense used by many Korean business owners in the LA riots. If a gun that was made illegal could be used for lawful purposes in the future the specific law will go through trial, however if there are guns that are not in use for lawful purposes there is no constitutional protection for them currently. As I pointed on in the first round, there are many uses of guns for self defense, and unless you can prove that guns cost more lives than they save, laws reducing our personal freedoms of owning and using guns should not be tolerated. Guns can be used for self defense, however if they cannot be used for lawful purposes, then the second amendment does not protect them, and therefore gun control over them should not need to pass an amendment. 1. . http://www.nizkor.org...... 2. . http://debate-central.ncpa.org...... 3. . http://www.lawnix.com...... 4. . http://www.usconstitution.net......