The US should adopt a ban on all semiautomatic firearms

Thank you for the rebutalls Pro.Also I would like to apolgize for the atrocious formatting presented in the last round. I will try to fix it.(1) Reduction of homicides Pro’s study claims that a 1 percent increase in gun ownership is “correlated” with a 0.9 percent in firearm homicide, but the key word is correlate. If we look at Pro’s source, it says that the researchers could not determine causation. In other words, the study concedes that the increase in firearm homicide cannot be directly attributed to the increase in gun ownership. There is also another key flaw that is mentioned. The study itself admits that it used a “GEE negative binomial model with year fixed effects and accounting for clustering by state, but without any other predictor variables besides gun ownership” [1]. Generally speaking, the states in the South (Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi ) have always had higher rates of gun ownership, but it’s socioeconomic status has been significantly lower when compared to other states. Poverty, unemployment, lack of job opportunity strongly correlates with crime, so it’s more likely that these factors contributed to fire-arm homicide rather than the actual gun ownership. It’s interesting that Pro only talks about firearm homicide, but if we look at overall homicide among the states, there isn’t a strong correlation. A state like California only has a 19.8% gun ownership rate with a 4.9 per 100,000 homicide rate, whereas a state like Idaho has a 56.9% gun ownership rate with a homicide rate of 2.9 [2]. Pro continues with his mistake of mistaking correlation with causation, and highlights countries like Australia and Japan. There are too many factors to consider when comparing homicide rates among countries, with a large indicator being poverty and GDP. There are two points I would like to make: The U.S is ranked #1 in gun ownership (101 guns per 100 people) [3] but is ranked #88 in homicide rates (4.92 per 100,000) [4]. El Salvador on the other hand is ranked #89 in gun ownership [3] (5.8 guns per 100 people) but is ranked #1 in homicide rate (108.8 per 100,000) [4]. If guns were the main culprit in homicide, these statistics would be the inverse. Poverty and GDP on the other hand seem to correlate much stronger than gun ownership. El Salvador’s poverty rate and GDP are significantly lower than the U.S’s, which would indicate why it is much more dangerous. If we look at Australia’s homicide rate prior to the ban and before the ban, it followed a consistent downwards trend which can be attributed to other factors. There is no indication of any dramatic decline in homicide after the ban was passed so it’s highly unlikely that the ban made any difference in the overall homicide rate. During this same time period, the U.S also experienced a drop in homicide rate, but at a much larger rate, despite not having a ban. In the case of Japan, it has always historically had low homicide rates, and is not proof that gun bans work. The same arguments above all apply to the issue of law enforcement homicides. The states with higher gun ownership tend to also have higher crime rates, which logically suggests that the chance of law enforcement homicide to be higher. (2) Mass shootingsWhile it is true that the U.S has more mass shootings than other countries, the % of murder that are attributed to mass shootings is less than 1% of all gun deaths. While I do not wish to desensitize the victims of mass shootings, it doesn’t make sense to create a blanket ban based on incidents that are statistically very rare when we look at the overall picture [5]. Regarding the Parkland and Sutherland Springs shootings, the incident could have been entirely avoided had the FBI taken a more proactive approach in preventing those individuals from buying firearm [6]. I believe the focus on pre-emptive measure would be more effective in preventing these incidents from happening than a blanket ban, because previous bans from the past didn’t make any difference when it comes to mass shootings. The shooters still managed to acquire those weapons. The Assault Weapons Ban was passed by Congress in 1994 but when the Columbine massacre (1999) happened, the perpetrators were found to have TEC- 9’s with them, a semi-automatic pistol that was prohibited according to the ban. The law didn’t seem to do anything in this case. If we passed a ban on all semi-automatic guns, the sheer volume of guns already floating around the U.S would render any legislation useless [7]. If people are so determined to commit these acts of violence, they will always find a way. France has one of the strictest gun control laws in the world, but the terrorists managed got access to fully-automatic rifles (virtually impossible to get in the U.S) and hand grenades, killing 137 people. That is more fatalities than the top 2 mass shootings in U.S history combined [8]. For France, it would make far more sense to focus on pre-emptive measures (stricter surveillance, stricter immigration,) rather than focusing on gun laws. The U.S should do the same as well (bullying prevention programs, better counselling,).(3) SuicidesPro makes the mistake of only focusing on fire-arm homicides, but why aren’t we comparing suicide rates in general? Is killing yourself with a gun somehow worse than hanging yourself? In both cases, you still die. If we look at overall suicide rates, the U.S is right in the middle of the pack, and countries like Japan and Finland have higher suicide rates than the U. S’s homicide and suicide rate combined [9]. Whether it’s done by firearms or not is irrelevant, because there are many other ways to commit suicide, especially in the case of Japan, which has a ridiculously low gun ownership rate. It’s not like suicidal people in America will stop being suicidal if they have no guns available. Suicide should be treated as a mental health concern, not a gun concern. Pro’s argument isn’t convincing since he doesn’t exactly show how overall suicide rates would reduce, just firearm suicides. He just seems to assume that lesser access to firearms would discourage suicide. He uses this same argument in his Israeli' Armed Forces example by showing firearm suicide reduced. Obviously fire-arm suicide will reduce if there are no fire-arms but it doesnt show that overall suicide reduces.=Conclusion=None of Pro's arguments justify the blanket ban he is proposing because he is using cherry-picked data and terms to make his case. Pro is relying far too much on data presented in other countries, but he doesn't show that correlation= casuation, which should be be considered when you make such drastic policy change. The politicial environment and culture is Australia is drastically different than the U.S's and is a poor example to use. Even the Australian Ambasaddor said that his countries gun control laws would not work in the U.S due to the different culture [10].Thank you and I await Pro's counter rebutalls.Sources:1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...2.https://www.cbsnews.com...3.https://en.wikipedia.org...4.https://www.indexmundi.com...5.https://www.vox.com...6.https://www.cnn.com...7.http://acolumbinesite.com...8. https://aoav.org.uk...9:http://www.rebresearch.com...10:https://psmag.com...