The U.S. government should impose stricter gun control laws in order to reduce violent crime

Alright. I'm going to go point by point down my opponents statements. First my opponent points out the fallacy between linking gun control and rates of homicides in the United States. To some extent I agree with him, however it is obvious that if we didn't have guns we would have a lower rate of homicide with them also. Furthermore my opponent goes on to conjecture, "I would attribute the higher rates of homicide to largely flaws in our legal / prison system / police state, which serve to worsen conditions for criminals instead of correcting them in any way" I find myself in accordance with my opponent here however I can not deny that the availability to weapons has helped these criminals. Next my opponent states that school shootings don't happen with full Autos however I would challenge my opponent to back up this claim or prove beyond a doubt that school shooting have occurred with only small scale handguns. Anything but this would be superfluous and should be illegal under my arguments. Secondly my opponent goes on to tell me that full autos are illegal in the U.S yet this isn't entirely true. The Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibited importation of non-sporting weapons from other countries. It also prohibited registry of most automatic firearms after that point. The The Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 on the other handed restricted some semi-auto weapons and banned the production of the machine gun. This however still allows for the sub-machine gun, assault and auto rifles, and machine pistols. My opponent also makes it seem as if fully-automatic guns are nearly impossible to register however a quick glance at wikipedia reveals that nearly 175,000 have been licensed to date in the U.S. This does not account of unlicensed guns. By the way here is an entertaining link to 72 articles on the AK-47. A quick glance over the list shows at least a few of them to be shootings. http://topics.cnn.com... The third story about the mall shooting 2 months ago should be observed. Next my opponent argues that making guns illegal will only cause them to go underground. I partially agree with this statement however at the same time it still does make it harder to people to come across these guns. The amount of work required to attain an illegal gun is substantially more than that required to buy the gun or grab your dads gun (if you are a school child). My opponent goes on to state that a person who is compelled to commit mass murder isn't going to change their mind because a mass murder gun is illegal. So here I must state that any mass murderer would want a full auto machine gun as it would be one of those effective guns in doing such a task. However the fact that the machine gun is illegal within the United States has prevented this from happening. My opponent spreads some light on this issue when he argues that school shootings do not happen with full autos. School shootings typically happen with the easiest weapon to come by. My opponents third point is that a person walking into a classroom with a hand gun vs. a full automatic will do just as much damage. This is simply not true, a person walking in with a handgun will be 1. Forced to reload 2. Forced to actually aim and 3. Forced to take more time between each shot. These factors allow for nearby people to attack said person. If my opponent would like we could expand this idea to a school cafeteria, the larger scale shows the benefits of full auto over handgun. Fourth: In the odd even we as a people face tyrannical oppression I doubt guns will do anything to protects us from what the government has. Either way unless you can prove tyrannical oppression will be happening on this scale the point is moot. Next my opponent goes on to argue proactive vs reactive. I care little for such an argument, I am simply arguing preventive. My argument takes the guns off the street which lowers the chance of them falling into the hands, legally or illegally, of criminals. From here he argues that students should be allowed to carry guns. This is a bad idea, to have the gun there simply promotes the idea of violence. As I said earlier if a school shooting like this did break out it would simply result in chaos. Next my opponent argues once again that we need weapons in order to fight the government should it repress us. I would simply like to offer alternative versions such as peaceful diplomatic democratic discussions. Finally my opponent finishes his speech by attacking my school cafeteria chaos point. He does so on two levels. A. He questions why anybody would start a shooting if they knew everyone was going to shoot them back. My answer is simple, because at the point when someone walks into a school intending to shoot many people they have already given up their will to live. This can be seen through the AK-47 link above and many other incidents where the criminal commmited seucide afterwards. B. My opponent states, "Historically, similar situations have occurred on numerous occasions. Think about the exact same scenario playing out in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries if a person walked into a bar full of people carrying a gun intending to kill many or all of the people in there. Do you think they'd all panicked and kill each other?" This is his downfall and an example the clearly proves my case. As I recall from many old westerns such shootings resulted constantly in anywhere from 1 to 10 people dieing. It was incidents like this that started the whole "gun control" idea in the first place. The fact that we don't have these incidents any more simply proves my point. The fact that it is now illegal to carry guns like that has prevented many needless homicides. In summary my opponent advocates for a proactive stance on this issue; everyone should have guns to preempt other people. However my opponent never answers my argument stating that it is impossible to preempt someone who pulls a gun on you. I on the other hand advocate prevention, my case stops the gun crimes before they ever happen by making the guns more and more difficult to come by. Examples of this are the western scenario my opponent offered or the lack of school shootings involving full auto machine guns. I do not advocate the complete restriction of guns I simply advocate all guns above the common handgun and hunting rifles should have stricter control laws. Thank you.