A complete gun ban in the United States

ProloguePro rightly said that he need not touch upon the current laws and precedents regarding the Constitution. The debate format dictates that I can only provide case this round - so I will refrain from refuting Pro's case.ArgumentsIneffectiveLet's consider a hypothetical scenario, where the US pass a law to ban citizens from owning firearms... How do you plan to "collect" these weapons? Well, there are 300 – 310 million guns in the US (1) alone, or 90 guns per 100 residents (2), which is significantly higher than any other country (4). 47% of adult Americans admit that they have at least one firearm (5). Now, if guns all of a sudden were banned, what efficient method could the legal system devise to confiscate these firearms? The aforementioned statistics convey a cumbersome amount of firearms that ought to be removed. I assert that there is not a viable method to retrieve these fire arms. There are numerous ways for criminals to retrieve firearms (6), many of which evade legal documentation - meaning the transaction is not recorded. In fact, many people can do this. If guns were banned, no-one could officially know who has guns or not. Without a search warrant, if policemen were to go door-to-door, asking the residents to hand over their guns, if the transaction was not listed, policemen would not have a right to search their property. Albeit, most would legally purchase their firearms from stores all around the US, where their credentials would be recorded and stored in databases. However, these stores could not necessarily hand over their customer's details, since this would breach the American versions of the Data Protection Act (7)(8)(9). However, let's say this law could allow breaches in this form of privacy regardless, and would be able to find the listed firearms, that is only some of the many firearms out there. Legally bought weapons don't tend to pose a problem anyway - the most popular weapon type used for crime are handguns (10), yet 60% of handguns used in crime are stolen (11). It is said that 6% of murders are committed with legally acquired guns (12). 6%! That's tiny. Criminals acquire their guns by, straw purchasing, stealing, gun trafficking, black market etc. (13). If there was a gun ban, there is literally nothing stopping criminals from acquiring their weapon of choice. The next source I will provide shows that, once upon a time, Washington DC banned handguns, (bare in mind, the gun used to populate the majority of homicide and crimes), but to their surprise, the homicide rate had risen: (14)This depicts two things: a gun ban isn't necessarily effective, and if you ban the weapon of choice, it leads to a reagression to other weapons.This brings me to my next contention, a gun ban would only result in a reagression of other weapons. Knifes already populate a significant amount of homicides (15). Despite criminals having easy access to guns, they could easily use a knife if they saw fit. In fact, gun ownership can actually protect people. 67% of gun owners that had partaken in this survey, own firearms under the motive of self-protection (16). A 1993 nationwide survey of 4,977 households found that over the previous five years, at least 0.5% of households had members who had used a gun for defense during a situation in which they thought someone "almost certainly would have been killed" if they "had not used a gun for protection." Applied to the U.S. Population, this amounts to 162,000 such incidents per year. This figure excludes all "military service, police work, or work as a security guard." (17)A study conducted in 2000 deduced that "U.S. Civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year." (18)Another study deduces "Americans use guns to frighten away intruders who are breaking into their homes about 498,000 times per year." (19)The last study I will be mentioning is a survey of male felons in 11 state prisons dispersed across the U.S. And it found:• 34% had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim" • 40% had decided not to commit a crime because they "knew or believed that the victim was carrying a gun" • 69% personally knew other criminals who had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim""(20)ConclusionI apologize for a short round of case - my arguments mainly rely on refuting my opponents... Anyway, I have shown that a gun ban would be completely ineffective, would cause a reagression in other weapons, and I have shown that guns can be excessively used to protect people. Over to you, Pro.Citations(1) http://dailycaller.com...(2) http://en.wikipedia.org...(3) http://top5ofanything.com...(4) http://www.reuters.com...(5) http://www.gallup.com...(6) http://www.pbs.org...(7) http://en.wikipedia.org...(8) http://en.wikipedia.org...(9) http://en.wikipedia.org...(10) http://www.firearmsid.com...(11) http://www.bjs.gov...(12) http://extranosalley.com...(13) http://www.pbs.org...(14) https://www.justfacts.com...(15) http://www.fbi.gov...(16) https://www.justfacts.com...(17) https://www.justfacts.com...(18) https://www.justfacts.com...(19) https://www.justfacts.com...(20) https://www.justfacts.com...