We Should Have Stricter Gun Control

This debate will cover whether or not we should have stricter gun control. For the first round, we will set up the perimeters and definitions. We should not have arguments/points/etc. in the first round, only introductions. From the second round onwards, we shall flesh out our arguments.

Gun control would be considered as how easy it is to attain guns (meaning eligibility and sales), how strict the regulation on concealed weapons is, and how much power our government should have in terms of regulating guns.

Gun control should not be considered on the levels of military and law enforcement.

It is my position that we should not have stricter gun control.

I thank my opponent for challenging me to this debate, and I hope it turns out great.

I agree with the definitions and parameters for this debate, though I will add that this debate should be localized in the legal context of the United Stated. This might be irrelevant, but I want to avoid any possible discrepancies.

I will argue that we should have stricter gun control - but first, it is my opponent's turn to argue.

Thanks for accepting this debate.

1) Stricter gun control laws do not reduce crime.

An overarching theme of gun control is whether the strictness of its regulations has a correlation to how much it controls and/or reduces crime. Stricter gun control laws include longer waiting times, stricter eligibility for the privilege to conceal arms, as well as tougher requirements for background checks. I contest that stricter gun laws will either have no impact on crime rates, or it will have a negative impact on crime rates.

Firstly, statistics and studies on gun control show that a longer waiting period does not impact firearm crime rates at all. Moreover, all commercial gun dealers have to run a background check; there is no loophole during "gun shows", as many people assume, either. Background checks are a gauge of how lawful a person is on paper; it's impossible to gauge everyone's intentions and what they might do in situations that cause them spur-of-the-moment violence.

Finally, the real kicker is that gun control laws do the opposite of what they are supposed to do. In fact, the 31 states with "shall issue" laws (the law to conceal weapons) "have, on average, a 24 percent lower violent crime rate, a 19 percent lower murder rate and a 39 percent lower robbery rate than states that forbid concealed weapons." The nine states with he lowest violent crime rates all have right to carry laws. (http://www.cato.org...)

Gun control laws do *not* work, and it is not a theoretical statement, but a statistically proven one. To make guns harder to obtain simply makes no difference to crime rates. To pass laws that forbids someone to conceal weapons makes crime rates go higher. Gun control laws not only do not work, but they even bring up crime rates.

2) Guns save lives.

Despite it being an incredibly corny line, guns don't kill people, people kill people. When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.

However, someone pro-gun control might say that guns make it easier for people to kill, and guns make harm more accessible to people. We have to consider that people are using the guns to harm others.

How, then, will people defend themselves?

Consider this: rape victims are mostly female and physically weaker than their predators. What's a quick way to bridge the gap between the physicality? With a gun, of course. A victim with a gun is far more likely to have a winning chance to defend themselves.

One, of course, also needs to look at the numbers. "Guns are used for self-defense more than 2 million times a year, three to five times the estimated number of violent crimes committed with guns." (http://www.cato.org...)

Guns save lives. To the weak, easily victimized, guns are a way for them to give themselves a fighting chance.

3) Guns are a form of liberty.

We all know that weapons are power. Time and time again we've been shown that whoever has the weapons, has the power. For example, Hitler himself said that the "most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms". (http://constitutionalistnc.tripod.com...) The only people that could have guns were the German military, the military that ended up being the law and order of all of the Nazi-occupied countries.

For there to be stricter gun control laws, we are putting more power into our governments' hands. What makes America a democracy is that the people hold the power. To hinder America's accessibility to arms is to hinder America's liberty. Just because America, at the moment, seem to be at a point where the people hold the most power, we shouldn't forget the recent events of World War II, where anyone Japanese in America by heritage, whether they are an American or not, were put into concentration camps whilst their property was taken away.

4) Conclusion

Not only are stricter gun laws not effective or negatively effective, they are also a great component in people's safety. Statistically, and realistically, stricter gun laws will not save lives. In fact, it will cause more lives to be harmed. Even though the laws might be well-intentioned, they have to consider how the laws would work- and they wouldn't. Gun control doesn't work. I challenge Pro to come up with laws that aren't redundant or reductive.

Just because we have a problem (gun violence) doesn't mean there's a solution to it. Stricter gun control laws are not a solution. My final argument is that yes, we have a problem, but the proposed solution (gun control) does not work.

I look forward to hearing my opponent's side of the debate :).

I thank my opponent for her response. While her contentions are coherent with the right goal in mind (we both presume that decreasing crime and preserving human life and welfare are desirable ends), her arguments often sidestep important facts that may have been blurred along the way. She uses a point about statistical differences in conjunction with stricter gun control laws, but she forgets that there is a degree of interpretation that is involved in statistics -- we shouldn't readily accept it's consequences at face value.

I will respond accordingly to the numbered format she has supplied, for the sake of clarity and convenience:

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Argument #1: Stricter gun control laws do not reduce crime.
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You argument here relies on statistics, and this is where my first criticism arrives. Statistical evidence can be incredibly annoying given that many arguments which use it do so in the lens of correlation, as is what happens in statistics. As you should know, the problem with relying on correlation is that there are often many variables that can be unknown or failed to be calculated, thus skewing one's understanding of the casual chains behind a certain statistical conclusion. This is how we can have different statistical evidence: I can reference you to a paper that demonstrates a high percentage of deaths in America was via guns[1] and that there is a strong correlation between gun-ownership and gun-homicide[2].

We should move out of this muck - such a debate about statistics would be obtusely long and complicated to the point of unbearable technicalities. I propose that instead of simply throwing statistics back and forth, we should examine the main claim here - that stricter gun control will not reduce crime (or it can even increase crime) and extrapolate a plausible reason for this. In other words, we should ask ourselves WHY stricter gun control won't at the very least help lower the crime rate. Allow me to break it down:

You state that "stricter gun laws will either have no impact on crime rates, or it will have a negative impact on crime rates." If so, then you should have some psychological or sociological justification for this claim; in other words, I want you to demonstrate to me how having a stricter regulation on guns will have no impact on crime rates. I propose that even a simple folk psychology thought experiment can expose the failure of such a claim.

The basic question of how crimes come about is simple. There exists a group of people who desire something illegal (drugs), or desire something in an illegal fashion (rape). Given that they have a motivation for desiring whatever it is they desire, the more power they have the easier it is to get it. Guns greatly aid the criminal in obtaining what they want, and thus it would seem to be a simple task to conclude that thus more criminals will succeed in their actions and thus the crime rate will go up.

Do note that I use crime rate in comparison to previous amounts of violence - if a state has an overall increase in criminal activity but at the same time employed an effective police force, we wouldn't say such a state was getting more peaceful. Rather, it was the presence of a police force that curbs the statistics, thus giving the charming but false presentation that the state's crime rate is lowering.

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Argument #2: Guns save lives.
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This is an fact that I have no motivation to deny. What I will complain is that this argument neglects the very fact that my position for having stricter gun control laws does not negate such a demand for innocent people to have guns in self-defense. The stricter gun control laws are aimed at diffusing crime rate by making it much harder for criminals to obtain it. After all, isn't it common sense that the more powerful weapon you have the easier it is for you to commit a crime (if you desired as such)?

If one is a law-abiding citizen then he should have no problem purchasing a gun to defend himself. Therefore, your point about rape victims and whatnot is moot; in no way does my position entail the denial of self-defense via gun ownership.

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Argument #3: Guns are a form of liberty.
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Going along with the same motif in my previous argument, I will reverberate that my position does not deny the law-abiding citizen to own guns for self-defense, hunting, etc. Therefore, I see no need in refuting this point given that the main purpose of gun control laws is to decrease crime rates by making it harder for criminals to accomplish their tasks.

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Conclusion
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It would seem patently obvious to me that the only real avenue my opponent has left is to provide a satisfactory rationale for the claim that stricter gun control laws would, at the very least, have no significant impact on crime rates. As I proposed before, it is both more efficient and important to examine the psychological rationale of such a claim.

I have proposed that such a claim is absurd - it is demonstrably simple to realize that if a criminal wants to obtain X, and he has the power to do so, he will likely do it (unless something else subjugates his motivation). By having a gun the criminal has more power and thus a greater chance of achieving his goals, which entails a crime.

---References---
1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...
2. http://www.unicri.it...

I thank my opponent for his response. I've noticed that his arguments are all based on the conjecture that somehow stricter gun control laws will, in its projected duty, doubly lower crime rates without harming the self-defense abilities and liberty of citizens. I will show that his guesswork is exactly that: a conjecture, but not an appropriate inference (there is a major difference, for the non-Bones viewers). I also contend that even without statistics, I can appropriately show that I can justify the psychological and/or sociological interpretations of my anti-gun control stance. Moreover, I plan to show that my opponent's responses to my contentions are wholly ineffective.

1) Stricter gun control laws do not reduce crime.

Firstly, I want to reiterate that I do agree America has a gun violence problem. I also want to say that stricter gun control laws will do nothing to help that problem. As my opponent challenges me to demonstrate that stricter gun regulations will have either none or a negative impact on crime rates, I respond with the following:

One thing my opponent fails to address or perhaps realize in his arguments is that for there to be stricter laws, *everyone* will have a harder time to obtain guns. How can the government *possibly* differentiate between people that purchase guns to commit crimes to people that purchase guns to defend themselves? Our laws as of now already has thorough background checks to consider if the purchaser is at-risk. Again, I challenge my opponent to come up with a plausible solution for stricter gun regulations to better deter criminals and future criminals that won't prevent everyone else in the mass that is America from the timely ability to defend themselves while somehow "picking out" the criminals and would-be criminals.

Moreover, I'd like to point out that criminals can easily obtain guns around the law. I agree that people who desire to do or obtain something illegal will have the motivation to use guns. However, my opponent fails to realize that criminals have been getting guns from unlicensed, illegal, unregulated sources for ages and they're going to keep doing that. In fact, stricter gun control laws will give even stronger motivation for criminals to obtain guns outside regulation. If the fact that guns can be traced to them isn't enough for criminals to go around the law to obtain guns, for there to be stricter laws would give criminals even more motivation to illegally purchase guns. After all, why on earth would criminals want to purchase from a regulated seller *now*, let alone when we have stricter regulation? My opponent also insists that motivation will cause someone to try the hardest to obtain something they want; hence, it's only logical that criminals will purchase outside of regulation since it's so much easier.

My opponent's entire argument is based on his belief that somehow stricter gun regulations *can* do such a thing as deter criminals to obtain guns, yet he provides nothing to justify that belief.

2) Guns save lives.

My opponent assumes that somehow, if we have stricter gun control laws, we will have better control over whether or not criminals purchase guns and still give self-defense to law-abiding citizens. As I've shown in 1), that is simply not true. How can we differentiate between law-abiding citizens and criminals? Stricter gun control laws will not deter criminals from obtaining guns, and it will only make it harder for citizens to get guns.

Yes, it is common sense that the more powerful weapon you have, the easier it is for someone to commit a crime. If that's true, then my opponent should also concede that the more powerful weapon you have, the easier it is for someone to defend themselves. For there to be stricter gun control laws, we aren't taking away the weapons of criminals, but rather the weapons of people that want to defend themselves.

I do believe that my rape victim and "whatnot" example counts towards this debate, since if stricter gun regulations are put into place, less people will obtain guns. If less people obtain guns, then less people will be able to defend themselves with guns. Realistically, if I was a rapist, I would go for the one with the Swiss army knife rather than the one with a handgun. More than that, if I was going to do *any* crime that involves victims, I would go for the ones without guns.

If there are stricter gun regulations, less people will have guns, and hence more easy target victims for the crimes of criminals that will attain guns from elsewhere. Again, I must challenge my opponent to come up with stricter gun regulation laws that will deter criminals from attaining guns while maintaining the ability to let law-abiding citizens to obtain them.

3) Guns are a form of liberty.

As with my previous arguments, I stand with my point that to have stricter gun control would hinder citizens' self-defense and have no bearing on crime rates. Moreover, my opponent fails to respond to my previous argument for liberty; I still vie that stricter gun control laws will deter liberty because weapon is power, guns are power, and to subject citizens for stricter gun control laws on the government's terms is to take a form of liberty away from Americans. To show my previous argument:

"We all know that weapons are power. Time and time again we've been shown that whoever has the weapons, has the power. For example, Hitler himself said that the "most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms". (http://constitutionalistnc.tripod.com......) The only people that could have guns were the German military, the military that ended up being the law and order of all of the Nazi-occupied countries.

For there to be stricter gun control laws, we are putting more power into our governments' hands. What makes America a democracy is that the people hold the power. To hinder America's accessibility to arms is to hinder America's liberty. Just because America, at the moment, seem to be at a point where the people hold the most power, we shouldn't forget the recent events of World War II, where anyone Japanese in America by heritage, whether they are an American or not, were put into concentration camps whilst their property was taken away."

To elaborate even more, I daresay that this contention has less to do with crime-deterrents and self-defense than liberty and the relationship of power between the people and the government. My opponent does not realize that there is a disconnect between those two. The stricter grasp our government has on our gun laws, the stricter grasp our government has on our liberty, and the larger the pool of power our government has over its people. My opponent does not provide a refutation to my argument that to impose on our gun laws is to impose on our liberty.

4) Conclusion

My opponent has the fanciful belief that somehow stricter gun control laws will deter criminals from obtaining guns, which I've refuted through and through in my arguments. My opponent also fails to respond effectively to my 2nd contention simply because it's entirely based on his (refuted) first response to my first contention, moreover he virtually did not respond to my 3rd contention.

I believe that my opponent's biggest obstacle is that he has a burden of proof that he has not met. His burden of proof is simple but hard to rationally manifest; how can stricter regulations prevent crime? I challenge him to show me his proof of his stance.

Thank you, and vote for Con.

I thank my opponent for her response. As I've done with the previous rounds, I am determined to focus this debate on gun rights to a specific contention: whether the application of stricter gun controls will lead to a positive consequence in the balance of armed, innocent citizens and criminals with weapons. Obviously we desire more of the former and less of the latter, it is extremely likely to do away with both of them -- however, we can hope to minimize such damage by prompting for more well-armed citizens whilst disarming criminals. This is where I propose gun controls can help.

Since I believe our only major point of division to be here, I will go on and explain the failure of her argument concerning the first point, and then demonstrate the irrelevancy of her other contentions. In fact, as I've stated before I will even grant her latter 2 points given that they are both harmless to my position nor do they conflict with it.

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Argument #1: Stricter gun control laws do not reduce crime.
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Your first rebuttal is to argue that everyone will have a harder time to obtain guns if there are stricter gun laws, thus lowering the amount of criminals owning guns BUT ALSO citizens in need of a defensive weapon. Whether or not this is an appropriate criticism (as it assumes the lowering of the opportunities for citizens is as important for criminals), I can level one easy argument against it: this is simply false.

Sure, sellers may not be able to check out the customer's motivation but they can very well apply other rules and regulations to strengthen the prevention of a gun getting into a criminal's hand. Things such as much more extensive background checks (there are obviously levels), a longer waiting period, a more extensive test, a limit on what kind of guns can be bought, etc. There are a much more things that can be down to restrict the flow of guns into the public hands that can be done without impeding a citizen too much. As long as said citizen is law-abiding and a little more patient, he should be able to buy his gun -- the criminal, on the other hand, will likely turn up to be illegitimate or not try at all in fear of being caught.

Your other point is about those gain guns illegally - this dodges the point I am making. If we are deciding on laws concerning the regulation of alcohol, it would be irrelevant to cite instances in which teenagers obtain alcohol via illegal methods; it's not the laws fault that people are breaking it. To curb such an effect, though, stricter gun laws can make it harder for private interests to obtain and manufacture guns.

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Argument #2 and #3: Guns save lives & Guns are a form of liberty.
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As I've stated in my previous contention, this is a useless argument now. While it is true the amount of law-abiding citizens will decrease ever so slightly, the amount of criminals with weapons will decrease MUCH MORE given the much more ample risks present in stricter gun control laws (more extensive background search, stricter tests, etc.).

And in the same vein, though guns are a form of liberty and expression for Americans the presence of gun related crimes is of MUCH MORE IMPORTANCE than pleasing those with a gun hobby. To relate gun ownership to one's liberty is nonsense - old age traditions of liberty that were connected with America has no bearing on what is true for many people today. I for one do not find guns to be liberating, though I do know some do. The point is that though the presence of gun ownership will elicit certain emotions, it's irrelevant in the face of danger...especially when THEY CAN STILL OBTAIN IT. They just got to wait a little longer, is that too much to ask?

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Conclusion
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My position in no ways denies the liberty or safety of it's citizens, though I will agree it does lower it to some extent. However, this shouldn't be taken with too much weight given the fact that in the same hand, the amount of criminals with weapons will decrease MUCH MORE.

I thank my opponent for his response. My final round for this debate will be short and sweet, as I feel that the readers will have already have my previous arguments in mind; there is no need for me to be redundant. My main point in my final round is that my opponent has not met any of my challenges, and the argument that he produces for gun control is ineffective. Moreover, he is casting off *two* of my arguments, even though they are obviously pertinent to the subject of this debate.

1) Stricter gun control laws do not reduce crime.

For my opponent's responses on what constitutes gun control laws as effective, he said "much more extensive background checks (there are obviously levels), a longer waiting period, a more extensive test, a limit on what kind of guns can be bought". Background checks do one thing; they check for a criminal record. There are no levels to this. What pertinence is, say, what job or education level a person has in correlation to how eligible they are for a gun? Our current gun control laws already do this. Moreover, what on earth would a longer waiting period achieve? How would that help with hindering the gun-attainment for criminals? There is no purpose to longer waiting periods. Also, do you mean test by ability? What tests are you talking about? I think that as long as a person learn the basic safety features of a gun and how to shoot it, beyond that, how can there be more extensive tests? The limit of types of guns should also be elaborated on, because I don't see how much relevance it has to why that would limit criminal activity. If we're talking about most of America, then we're talking about handguns; shotguns and so forth would only be relevant to recreation and hunting (in fact, shotguns are a bigger pain to carry and shoot than handguns are). I hope it's common sense that our current gun control laws do not permit machine guns and so on (aka militia guns).

The purpose of my breaking down my opponent's laws is that it is obvious that stricter gun control laws DO NOT WORK. My opponent cannot even come up with the very laws that he argues to defend.

My point about attaining guns illegally is pertinent because I am arguing that it doesn't matter if we have stricter gun control laws, because it will not reduce crime. No matter how strict the laws are, people will get guns, and that's where the gun-related crime rates come from. Isn't that the whole purpose of this argument?

My opponent is wrong because there is no rational reason to have stricter laws; it does not reduce crime. My point is shown through his proposal of very ineffective laws; there simply is no rational stricter gun regulations that will reduce crime.

2) Guns save lives.

This is probably the most pertinent argument of this debate, as not only have I shown how obviously fruitless stricter gun regulation is, but to make attaining guns harder would be to hinder many citizens the ability to defend themselves. The laws pertaining to stricter gun control such as a longer waiting period, what point is there to that law? Why should the government impose such unnecessary laws that would only make it harder for citizens to gain the ability to better defend themselves?

3) Guns are a form of liberty.

Guns are not liberating in the sense that it is the weapon that makes Americans liberated, but the power that they represent. America is built on the mission that the government is for the People. The more power the government has over the people the less liberated we are, and weapons are a *very* big form of power. Examples I can say off my head that were in my previous arguments are that Hitler explicitly acknowledged that to take away weapons from citizens is the best way to control them. Even America has been guilty of this, as shown from their instances of taking away the possessions of anyone of Japanese descent during the second World War. Stricter gun control won't turn our government into Nazis, but it is far too naive to say that our government wouldn't gain a stronger hold on us if they tightened how they regulated something as big as arms.

4) Conclusion

My opponent cannot even come up with laws that would effectively reduce crime rates. Everything about stricter gun regulations just screams unnecessary. I've never said that stricter gun control would deny liberty or safety, and my opponent concedes that "it does lower it to some extent". When there is absolutely no reason to impose stricter gun control, why should our government lower our liberty and safety? My last two arguments are absolutely relevant as they relate to us citizens as Americans and the foundation of our personal safety and our liberty.

The main point that my opponent fails to argue for is that the amount of criminals with weapons will NOT decrease. Stricter gun control does absolutely nothing, my opponent has shown no reason why it will, and I've shown plenty of reason why it *doesn't* work and in fact hinders America's safety and liberty.

I've had a very fun time with this debate, and I thank my opponent for a riveting debate. I'd like the voters to keep in mind we have a gun violence problem, but stricter gun control laws will do absolutely nothing to help reduce gun crime. Thank you, and vote for Con.

I thank my opponent for this debate on gun control - it's not a subject I often discuss. As is with my previous round, I remain adamant that her latter two arguments are unnecessary for this debate. Since I have been bent on proving one rather simple premise, this round need not be long.

Let me go back again: we both agree that preserving the human life and the quality of living is important, which we both agree to as a presupposition in this debate. Thus, we also value a method that would decrease the amount of criminals (or at least a criminal's power to do harm). As a consequence, we agree that a method which will overall decrease the amount of criminal power in relation to law-abiding citizen's freedoms is a method that SHOULD be undertaken. This general movement stemming from an ethical foundation to pragmatic considerations is what unites much of our beliefs.

So the more focused question is whether or not stricter gun control laws will decrease the amount of criminal power - I'm sure we both agree that, at least to an extend, IT DOES. However, the negative must also observe that stricter gun control laws can impede on the freedom (and safety) of law-abiding citizens as well. Therefore, we must look at the BALANCE between the too -- if some certain gun control laws were to be implemented that would tip the scale towards impeding on the freedoms of citizens, then my opponent would have palpable contentions against my position. On the other hand, if some certain gun control laws were to tip the scale towards decreasing the amount of criminal power, then I would have similar grounds to support such a change.

So the question remains: do stricter gun control laws on balance decrease criminal power more than impeding the freedom's of law-abiding citizens? I would argue that most gun control laws have a much more significant impact on criminals than law-abiding citizens, allow me to explain in further detail:

Take on gun control law: more extensive backgrounds. For a law-abiding citizen, this shouldn't be a problem since there shouldn't be anything to hide. For a criminal however, things such as suspicious connections or a tainted background can lead to higher attention at their activities or even rejection can curb the amount of potential gun-related violence. Another law is a waiting period; though any dedicated criminal can wait for the time, often criminals buy guns soon before committing a crime while a law-abiding citizen does not, on average, need it as urgently (there will probably be only one or two occasions in their life when it ever comes in crucial use - it's otherwise mostly rotting in their drawers). There are many other examples, but the point is that given the purpose and situations for criminals that obviously differ in comparison to law-abiding citizens, gun control laws will have a much more significant impact.

Gun control laws, on balance, have a much more significant impact on impeding the powers of criminals. This is evidenced in the needs of criminals rather than citizens, thus amplifying the effects.