3rd DDO Census Debate: Gun Ban

Observations OBV 1: My opponent attempts to refute my framework however they provide no alternative framework. Due to the fact that the framework is the equivalent to the debate onset, no matter how mitigated or refuted it may be, it still stands due to the fact that there is no alternative that judges can look at from my opponent. OBV2: In response to my opponent’s first overview, I would like to assure them that I will not be shifting the goalposts. I have told my opponent what my plan is and I will be sticking to that plan throughout the entire debate. There will be no shifting of the goalposts. Confiscation My opponent makes the argument of confiscation which is something that I’d like to quickly address before going into the counter rebuttals. Over the 20 year period of time, as gun laws get stricter this ultimately means that more people will be losing their privileges to own guns. Therefore, the confiscation will not happen in one day. It will happen over the 20 year period and when guns are finally banned (as I said in the plan), the difference will not be significant because the control and restriction on guns will be immensely high. Therefore, guns will be collected in small quantity over time. If there is any resistance then we will be able to handle it because it won’t all come in one large group of people. It will happen in small amounts over time as we slowly increase restriction. The Plan My opponent’s rebuttal is largely based on his own beliefs of what will happen. He offers no source of information to prove that it will take more than 20 years to do this. It is completely arbitrary. Furthermore, I have shown (see my confiscation rebuttal) that because it is done in small amounts over the 20 year process then this ultimately means that violence will be in minimal quantity and due to the fact that it will be spread out over a longer period of time this allows the police and the government not to be overwhelmed with lots of violence at once. Framework Metaethics As addressed in my observations, my opponent provides no alternative to moral realism or my entire framework for that matter. You ought to buy my framework because it is the only framework that has been presented. I will, however, provide a rebuttal regardless. Whilst it is true that the argument does work with anything the purpose of the argument is that value X can be substituted for things that people are unclear on or there is a relatively split opinion on the issue. For example, murder is commonly considered as wrong. Some people (usually nihilists) will argue that murder is neither right or wrong. Since there is a clear disagreement here we ought to look at murder and substitute it for value X. Things like breathing and eating are not usually considered to be objectively wrong actions and therefore it is unnessary to substitute value X for actions like these examples [1]. Even if my opponent does not necessarily find this argument persuasive by objecting to it means that they object to moral realism. Normative Ethics A. My opponent falsely states that I provide no reason as to why individual’s opinions matter in society. I specifically said that ‘laws must be in the best interest of the citizen,’ I expanded on this further when I said ‘guns cause death and violate the needs of the individual,’ giving you more reason to presume pro. Stating that I gave no reason is a use of litotes which is dismissive of my case. I also understand that collectivists can acknowledge the moral value of the individual but I am stressing that the moral worth of the individual is the most important view to consider in the debate since this is ultimately revolves around the issue of protecting the individual from harm. B. Of course property rights is important within the ideology of individualism however it is considered to be more important to preserve the individual's life rather than their property rights since without their life they cannot have their property rights. Ergo, individualists value the individual’s right to life over their property rights [2]. C. I agree. I am weighing this using the life system since an individualists beliefs coincide with utilitarianism in the respect that the more lives lost, the worse. Therefore 1 life is less important than more than 1 life. Murder Rate My opponent doesn’t account for the fact that the graph goes from (more or less), most - least restrictive in terms of guns. Norway has high gun control [3] which means that gun violence is lower (notice how it still has gun violence whereas the countries with complete bans don’t). I am not saying that restriction is not effective, if I was saying that then I wouldn’t have included 20 years of restriction in my plan. I agree that restriction does decrease gun violence but I also agree that gun bans reduce it more. It is important to note that the countries with complete bans have extremely little - no gun violence whereas countries with less restriction and higher gun quantity have more. Whilst in the middle (countries with various restrictions) there is some uncertainty in the statistics it is clear that the countries with bans have less gun violence than the countries with guns. This is undeniable since the graph blatantly shows this. Austria also has gun restrictions that my opponent fails to account for [4]. In France guns are only allowed with hunting or shooting licenses [5] and since I am only advocating the private ownership of guns (as per the resolution), this means that that France already has the system that I propose, my opponent directly concedes that France has low homicide rates. Similarly you need a special license in Iceland. You need to provide a valid reason to posses one in Australia (and the self defense excuse doesn’t work because anybody could say this). Greece has extremely strict gun control. New Zealand is a slight exception however many firearms are banned in New Zealand however restriction isn’t as harsh [6]. My opponent fails to understand that whilst there are a few fluctuations in terms of countries with few guns or gun restrictions, all of the countries with gun bans have extremely few - no gun deaths annually. My opponent says that culture is often a cause. This is true however under the heading of culture comes guns (ie. gun culture). I agree that culture can affect it however guns are a large part of US culture [7]. As the graph shows, all countries with gun bans are at the bottom of the graph. Not some. All. I agree that the UK doesn’t have a similar gun culture however the issue of culture will be removed under my plan. The problem of borders is not a problem that we need to be concerned about. The overview of border control shows that they are doing a job beyond sufficiency in protecting the US borders from illegal importations and exportations [8]. The black market is not necessarily going to grow as large as people think that it will. Comparison between the black markets of countries such as the UK show that black markets will not necessarily come about and can only be very temporary and then can go away [9][10]. Weapon trafficking is possible but will only be temporary (how long that time period will be is difficult to determine). These right wing extremists that my opponent refers to will be combated by the police force. Please bare in mind that I only advocate a ban on guns for citizens. The police will still have guns and the right wing extremist’s motive is to target the government and the police [11], not the citizens. Ergo, citizens will not be a prime target. The people that will need to defend themselves are people that aren’t citizens (e.g police), who will still have guns to defend themselves. 0.16 - 3.2% of the time guns are used successfully in self defense [12]. In fact, you are 2.7 times more likely to kill a family member or yourself with a gun than you are to kill a criminal / intruder [13]. Even by assuming that my opponent’s statistics are true that only means that 65% of the 0.16% of self defense incidents are successful. Under the individualist framework this is small since even less than the 0.16 % of gun crimes are successfully defended against with guns this means that the rest of the 96.80% - 99.84% crimes are not defended against. My opponent assumes that the fact that 47.3% of gun arrests were black people means that there is racism and inequality in the system. This may be due to the fact that statistically speaking black people are more likely to commit gun crimes [14]. Of course many won’t comply with the ban if it is a large and abrupt change. Under my plan, however, the change won’t be immediate and resistance will be minimal. Accidents Of course guns are supposed to be made properly however that doesn’t allow you to escape the reality that it does happen. Of course they are supposed to be that way but that doesn’t change the fact that it does happen as my contentions proved. Sources [1] Huemer, Michael (1992). "Moral Objectivism". Retrieved 2013-09-18. [2] http://www.robertbellah.com... [3] https://lovdata.no... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org... [6] https://en.wikipedia.org... [7] https://en.wikipedia.org... [8] http://www.cbp.gov... [9] https://en.wikipedia.org... [10] https://www.ncjrs.gov... [11] https://en.wikipedia.org... [12] http://www.armedwithreason.com... [13] Savage, Sam L. (2012), The flaw of averages [14] http://www.usnews.com...