Mental health evaluations should be required in order to buy a firearm

Introduction: My opponent has made an excellent reply this round, and I am very satisfied with how this debate has gone. I have no more commentary that I have not already made, so I will proceed with my arguments. Arguments: 1) Justification of Self Ownership My opponent has no objections to this point, so I extend it. 2) Justification of Property Rights Unfortunately, Pro has made no counterarguments against this point. If you refer to my argument in Round 1, you will see that he never addresses the theory behind this claim. Instead, he simply gives examples of possible results of this theory, presupposing that I will concede that they are bad. I have no objection to people owning any weapons, and Pro presupposes his conclusion in offering this as evidence. Consider, instead, if I were to list possible bad alternatives of the negation of this point. We could steal from one another at will and the government could take away your right to own anything. Both positions are bad when viewed in the worst possible light, but the negation is clearly worse. 3) Restricting the Trade of Guns Pro's response to this point under the previous argument amounts to little more than a presupposition of his conclusion: we should restrict the trade of guns because we should restrict the trade of guns. 4) Mental Illness Cannot Be Defined Objectively Pro has underestimated how convoluted issues regarding sanity and insanity truly are. I would like to discuss the Rosenhan Experiment [1]. It took from 7 to 72 days, with an average of 19 days, for perfectly sane people to be released from mental institutions, and all considered to be "in remission." The government cannot claim legitimacy in restricting the rights of supposedly insane people when professionals are clearly incapable of distinguishing them from everyone else. A private firm, on the other hand, only needs to be accurate to the extent that it is trusted. 5) Private Alternatives Pro has cited three examples in which the capitalist system has failed. I consider that a solid record. There is no telling whether mandatory mental health evaluations would have succeeded in keeping guns out of the hands of those people because they could always buy them illegally (see Round 1). In any case, this evidence only seems compelling because we do not see evidence of nonevents. A system that violates the rights of innocent people in small, minor events each day is not as inspiring but it is just as terrible. Pro also seems to believe that governments are the solution to slavery. However, governments have been the greatest perpetrators of slavery in the history of the world. The United States government carries out and sanctions slavery to this day [2]. Rather than trading one master for another, I think slaves would benefit from the libertarian solution: exercise their right to defend themselves against violations of their rights. The government is almost exclusively harmful, and the good that it does can be done without the use of coercive force. 6) Preventing Gun Violence is Impossible Pro has argued that private security is expensive to fund and may not be available everywhere. This applies equally to government security; everything costs money. Funding it through theft doesn't make it free. Since Con is also against government security, he seems to be arguing that security is impossible and the real solution is to disarm everyone. All this does is place all the power in the hands of the few who are armed. It takes little analysis to decide whether my position or my opponent's position reduces to totalitarianism. Pro barely addresses my point about the burden of proof. I suggested that what is morally just and produces the most benefit is more important that what adjusts statistics. I offered genocide as a possible example of something that would improve the gun death statistics but would clearly be bad. Just because something would reduce gun violence, or improve any generally undesirable problem, does not make it good overall. As for Pro's comments on the unregulated distribution of nuclear weapons, I will answer those concerns. I can say without fear that I see no negative implications in allowed the unregulated sale and production of nuclear weapons: they are far too expensive to be developed and produced privately, they are practically useless so not one would want them, and madmen trying to hold the world hostage could be dealt with by private forces within libertarian principles. The libertarian solution to nuclear weapons is far better than one in which states can produce them by the thousands and push humanity to the brink of annihilation to further their petty political goals. Pro writes lots of state capitalist stock phrases, but he substantiates little of it. Why have mandatory speed limits when the owner of a road can set the speed limits however he wants? The idea in mainstream politics is that "X doesn't work" where X can be any system that deviates from democracy and state capitalism. Communism doesn't work, anarchy doesn't work, perfectly free markets don't work, etc. It reminds me of Brave New World: repeat these phrases enough times and they become axioms. I have provided evidence and analysis to indicate why my position is credible, so simply saying that it's impractical doesn't prove anything. In any case, stealing is a wonderfully practical way to appropriate delicious candy. I prefer to buy things because I respect the rights of others and because I do not wish to perpetuate a society of violence. I think Pro's contention that instituting and legitimizing violence on a national scale is an effective way to reduce violence is a bit more impractical. Conclusion: Argument 6 is basically my conclusion. Also, this is the most stereotypical DDO political debate ever. Sources: [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://www.sss.gov...