Gun ban

What we are going to see at the end of this debate is that a gun policy similar to Australia would solve many of the problems facing the United States and that my opponent's arguments as to why it will fail are not well thought-out. First, I'll present my own case: 1) Australia's gun policy has been proven to lower crime and murder. Philip Alpers of the Sydney School of Public Health concluded that Australia's gun policy lead to around a 50% drop in gun deaths. (. http://www.gunpolicy.org...) Moreover, a gun ban will decrease the number of guns and thus decrease crime. Empirical data from 30 different studies and meta-analysis back up the claim that more gun ownership means more crime. (. https://www.scientificamerican.com...) 2) Lowering crime is one of the most important objectives in the U. S. today. Decreasing crime and shooting has got to be one of the biggest objectives in the United States today. This is not only because all citizens have a right to live safely but also because crime prevents low-income areas from developing and thus inhibits economic mobility. (. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...) 3) A gun ban can be implemented without barring all individuals from owning a gun. In this debate, the opposition is going to make the case that a gun ban is bad because it would prohibit people from owning a gun no matter what. This is not true because as the BBC explains in October 2017, Australia's gun ban does not outlaw all gun ownership but rather "has 28-day waiting periods, thorough background checks, and a requirement to present a 'justifiable reason' to own a gun. " (. http://www.bbc.com...) Now, I'll go through my opponent's arguments and show you why they don't add up: "A gun ban in the United States of America will not work and will not solve our problems. " I'm pretty sure this is just a tagline, but if not, there's nothing to support this argument at all. So don't buy it unless he can prove it. But what I've clearly shown you in my own case is that a gun ban such as that in Australia clearly would solve a major problem facing the U. S. today. "The gun ban in Australia would not translate well to the U. S. A. Australia is an island nation with no immediate threats unless NZ turned on them. The US borders Canada and Mexico, Mexico is home to the most dangerous city in the western hemisphere (Juarez) and experiences more threats. The US does have more crime than AUS but it also has a larger population. " First, the offense: 1) Because I've shown you that more guns do in fact mean more crime, it's more important that the U. S. ban them given our proximity to threats. This is because crime tends to increase poverty rates and in effect lead to more crime, so in the U. S. the problem is going to compound itself more than in Australia unless we act. 2) Even if more people live in Australia, there is a far greater amount of crime PER CAPITA in the U. S. which is what matters. A 2008 study by the American Journal of Medicine found that Americans were 10 times more likely to be killed by a gun than people in developed countries. Even if a larger population has some impact on crime, it could by no means account for a tenfold difference. Unless my opponent can prove that the population difference accounts for such a large discrepancy then this argument has no merit. (. https://www.cbsnews.com...) Then, the defense: 1) Outside threats are irrelevant to the private ownership of firearms. In the U. S. we are protected from foreign threats by our military and our police, the best in the world. Private citizens do not need to own guns to protect themselves from threats coming from other countries. "People get killed every day in both countries, in the United States the highest gun crime/homicide rates come from cities with the strictest gun control laws. (Example: Chicago, New Orleans, Detroit)" First, the offense: 1) This has been empirically shown to not be true. A 2000 study done by Mark Duggan of the National Burro of Economic Research found that a decrease in gun ownership in the United States was directly responsible for a decrease in crime (. http://www.nber.org...). The net effect of a gun ban is going to be a decrease in the ownership of guns, which will unequivocally lead to a decrease in crime. Then, the defense: 1) The critical error my opponent makes here is that he conflates correlation with causation. The problem with this argument is that these cities have the highest poverty rates and thus the highest crime rates. Stricter gun control laws have only been passed as a response to the increased crime and do not mean that more gun control leads to less crime. 2) He provides no source or reason why this is true, and moreover no link showing why the "evidence" shows gun control is ineffective.