Instigator / Pro
1
1294
rating
75
debates
18.0%
won
Topic
#1373
Gun Control
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
3
Better sources
0
2
Better legibility
1
1
Better conduct
0
1
After 1 vote and with 6 points ahead, the winner is...
Christen
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- Standard
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- 5
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Contender / Con
7
1526
rating
5
debates
70.0%
won
Description
Its time to do something the evidence is overwhelming if we get rid of the guns we get rid of the crime https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/danvergano/more-guns-more-crime
Round 1
Pro
#1
I used to be pro gun but over the decade and i mean decades i turn on the tv open the paper senseless killing almost always with a gun, guns are specifically more dangerous than other weapons we need to regulate them more strictly not necessarily ban them outright but prohibit military type guns that serve no purpose but mass shootings
Con
#2
"The Journal of Empirical Legal Studies report" within your buzzfeed article that you linked links to a research paper that is locked behind a paywall that I was luckily able to bypass and gain full access to, which I was then able to download and reupload to web archive so that nobody needs to pay money to access it, but keep in mind that every few seconds or so, you will have to deal with this annoying pop-up when reading through it, since I uploaded it to scribd.
Not gonna even bother reading through all 50-pages of that anyways. I just put it there so others can see it more easily. Still, linking sources that require weekly/monthly payments just to be viewed is just plain stupid, and I wouldn't recommend doing it in debates ever again. Voters have to be able to see your sources within 1 click of your link, not pay money for it. Not only that, but if you're gonna be citing a source that's dozens of pages long, the least you can do is try to quote the most important/relevant part of that source to the debate. That too makes it easier for both debaters and voters.
With that said I will provide some of my own arguments as to why we shouldn't/cannot "get rid of the guns," as well as address what you've said.
Its time to do something the evidence is overwhelming
This, I agree with. There definitely is overwhelming evidence that crime in the United States is getting out of control, and that something needs to be done about it. Chicago alone, for example, has like hundreds of shootings every year! [1]
However, this is where we disagree:
if we get rid of the guns we get rid of the crime
First of all, getting rid of the guns violates the Second Amendment, which says, and I quote, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." [2] This means that well-regulated people have the right to possess weapons, which cannot be infringed upon or taken away. One of the reasons behind the Second Amendment was to ensure that we the people could have a chance to defend ourselves in case our government/leader ever becomes tyrannical or corrupt like Adolf Hitler, Kim Jong Un, or Nicolás Maduro.
Second of all, even if we were to let's say abolish the second amendment, and we decide to just get rid of the guns anyway, how exactly would we "get rid of the guns"?
Do we go door-to-door, knocking on every person's door across the country and ask them "hey do you have any guns? If so, please turn them over"? Do we carry out stop-and-frisk on a bunch of people to try and find their guns? Well good luck with that, checking millions of people and their homes to get rid of their guns in such as tedious and difficult attempt to get rid of their guns.
What about a mandatory buyback program? Should we require everyone to turn over their guns in exchange for a small amount of money like Beto O'Rourke wants to do? [3] I would definitely be in favor of a buyback program.... if it meant that even criminals would also turn over their guns, which they would never do, since they don't care about laws.
Third, getting rid of guns does not "get rid of the crime". People have been committing mass murders for thousands of years, since before guns even existed. [4] The problem with your buzzfeed article claiming that guns "trigger a 13% to 15% increase in violent crime" is that it's only focusing on 1 factor that plays a role in crime, when in reality, there are multiple factors that play a role in crime rates. [5]
To properly determine whether or not banning guns would guarantee that crime would go down, you need to focus on ALL of the factors that play a role in crime, not just 1 factor. After you focus on all of the factors, and then rule out each of them one by one until you reach the last factor, which is guns, only then can you reasonably claim that guns are the main problem. Your buzzfeed article only focuses on 1 variable while ignoring all the other variables, does not rule out any of those other factors that also play a role in crime, and then proceeds to brag about how "Scientists Showed How More Guns Led To More Violent Crime".
This article [6] says, and I quote, "A failure to isolate the controlled variables, in any experimental design, will seriously compromise the internal validity. This oversight may lead to confounding variables ruining the experiment, wasting time and resources, and damaging the researcher's reputation. In any experimental design, a researcher will be manipulating one variable, the independent variable, and studying how that affects the dependent variables. Most experimental designs measures only one or two variables at a time. Any other factor, which could potentially influence the results, must be correctly controlled."
In other words when trying to determine whether or not guns are the main problem, and whether or not banning them would fix that problem, you need to regulate and/or control external factors that could influence your dependent variable while you test your independent variable. The independent variable, in this case, is banning guns. The dependent variable, in this case, is the outcome of banning said guns, and whether or not it reduces crime. Other external factors that could influence this, such as a person's childhood, the kind of drugs a person uses, the kind of environment a person grows up in, the kind of people a person hangs out with, the king of school a person goes to, and so on, all need to be accounted for, otherwise, they could influence the outcome of your experiment to see if banning guns gets rid of crime, as well as mess up your results, which is what most likely happened with buzzfeed.
When you claim that by getting rid of guns you get rid of crime, simply because there was some kind of correlation between guns and crime, without considering all of the other external factors that may be playing a role in crime, you end up committing a logical fallacy known as the Post Hoc Fallacy. [7] By claiming that getting rid of guns led to crime going down simply because one happened after the other is committing this logical fallacy. You also could be committing a different kind of fallacy known as the Cum Hoc fallacy, which is when you claim that crime goes down at the same time you get rid of guns and therefore getting rid of guns caused it, without looking at the other external factors and/or keeping those other external factors in check. [8]
we need to regulate them more strictly not necessarily ban them outright but prohibit military type guns that serve no purpose but mass shootings
Both Chicago and California already regulates these guns "more strictly" than other states [9] so how much "more strictly" do you need them to be regulated?
Not only that, but guns do not "serve no purpose but mass shootings". Guns can also be used to hunt, to show off, and most importantly, to protect oneself. They serve many other purposes. Some people just so happen to use them for bad purposes when they fall into the wrong hands.
Conclusion:
Getting rid of the guns does not get rid of crime, especially since people could just switch to knives or something.
I am not saying we should have no gun laws. I do think that it is necessary to but basic limits, restrictions, and background checks towards insane people, as well as children, to keep them from just purchasing a gun freely, is a good thing, but simply pumping out a couple dozen more strict gun laws and trying to act "more strictly" over and over towards these guns every time there is another mass shooting doesn't fix the problem.
It only makes things worse, as there seems to be this mentality circulating around that, if there is a mass shooting, then we need some more strict gun regulations and comprehensive background checks, and if there is another one, then we just keep throwing more regulations and background checks on top of that, and if there is another, we throw in more and more strict laws and comprehensive measurements, and so on, until we have like thousands of ridiculous strict measurements and restrictions. This mentality is bad and does not help anyone.
There are various factors that we could focus on to try and cut down on crime, like improving the environments that children grow up in, and not letting children hang out with the wrong crowd.... but simply focusing on 1 factor while ignoring the rest is a sign of ignorance and desperation. It is also counter-productive, since you aren't actually cutting down on crime, and California and Chicago are prime examples of this.
I would even argue that, for every mass shooting, there are also instances of good people with guns who use them to legitimately defend themselves, defend others, and save lives. It's just that the media often only wants to focus on mass shootings, and rarely focus on times when guns were used for good, in order to make it seem like guns are bad and nothing but bad, and that the National Rifle Association (NRA) is bad. [10]
Sources:
[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20190911020138/https:/twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/1168616482529562625
[4] https://web.archive.org/web/20190911022001/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Greece
[7] https://web.archive.org/web/20190911023724/https://www.logicalfallacies.info/presumption/post-hoc/
[8] https://web.archive.org/web/20190911023735/https://www.logicalfallacies.info/presumption/cum-hoc/
Round 2
Pro
#3
places with fewer guns have much lower rates of crime https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts
i've looked at so much research that points in one direction the more regualtion the stricter the enforcement the lower violent crime rates will be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX4qUsgHa4Y
Con
#4
The main problem with trying to associate less guns with less crime is that guns are not the only factor that play a role in crime, and I talked about this in Round 1, but it's like you didn't even read what I said there, so I'll have to say it again.
When you have a source (your Vox/Buzzfeed source) showing that certain areas, such as Canada, that heavily restrict guns, have less crime, and another source (my source) showing that certain areas, like Chicago, that also heavily restrict guns, do not have less crime, then it usually means 1 of 2 things:
Either one of our sources is wrong and the other one is right, or both of our sources could be right/wrong but there is some other factor that plays a role in crime that either source may be failing to take into account.
In this case, it is true that crime went down in certain areas that restricted and/or banned guns like your source says, but it is also true that other areas which try to do the same thing experienced different results like my source says, so neither of our sources is necessarily wrong.
So what do we do in this case?
Here's what we need to do. We have to figure out what are all of the main factors that contributes to crime, and then determine which factor causes these different areas, all of which try to do the same thing which is heavily restrict guns, to experience different outcomes. In other words, why is it that one area such as Ireland can ban guns and have less crime while another area such as Chicago cannot do the same thing and achieve the same result that Australia did? The only logical answer to this is that there are other variables that need to be account for, and that we should first focus on those variables/factors and THEN see if guns are really the problem.
For example, your source listed Australia as one of the areas that supposedly bans guns and then had a reduction in crime.
Well, what kind of culture does Australia have? Is it a culture that mostly dislikes guns or one that mostly likes guns?
What kind of economy does Australia have? Is Australia a poor third-world country like Africa is?
What kind of government does Australia have? Is their government great or corrupt?
Does Australia have it's own "second amendment" like the United States does?
Does Australia have drug problems or health problems like the United States does?
Do the children in Australia grow up in healthy happy environments, or do they often grow up exposed to all sorts of bad stuff?
Does Australia have a strong police force?
What is Australia's employment rate?
What is Australia's K-12 education system like, compared to the United States?
What does Australia think of immigrants?
What kinds of wars has Australia been involved in, in the past?
How does Australia elect it's president/leaders?
How big is Australia's population compared to the United States?
How does Australia's government spend it's tax dollars?
How big is Australia's prison population compared to the United States?
How many people in Australia are homeless/disabled compared to the United States?
What else does Australia ban besides guns? Do they ban swords too?
Any one or all of these things could play a role in crime, not just guns, so you can't only focus on guns and say that guns are related to crime, without looking at the other factors. This explains why some areas can ban guns and have the desirable outcome, while other areas cannot. It's because people often make the mistake of not paying attention to other different factors, and only paying attention to 1 factor.
When trying to prove any hypothesis, such as the hypothesis that banning guns leads to less crime, you need to make sure no other external factors are influencing this experiment. If you don't make sure other external factors influence this, then you're going to have these situations where some areas ban guns and it works, while other areas ban guns and it doesn't. You can't conduct an experiment to prove that banning guns leads to less crime without eliminating and/or regulating all of the other variables that play a role in crime. You can't properly claim that we just need pump out more and more strict gun laws, and that doing so will solve the problem, without first addressing the other things that also play a role in crime besides guns.
Otherwise, you'll have situations where this guy has to wait like a whole year just to get a gun while his friends are able to get guns in like half that amount of time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wRgjsSHaGE
Chicago and Australia both ban guns, yet one of them achieves the desired outcome while the other does not, so something is not being done right. Some external factor is influencing the outcome of banning guns and nobody is realizing it. Until we pinpoint what exactly that factor is, we can't just outright claim that putting more and more crazy restrictions on guns or banning them leads to less crime. That is a logical fallacy (either Post Hoc fallacy or Cum Hoc fallacy).
Sure, you could argue that if you ban guns then it will be harder for people to hurt others so easily, but I would say that it is also harder for people to defend people and save lives too, so those so-called benefits of banning guns would immediately be cancelled out by the downsides of banning guns. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtWfSwY3j0M
Banning guns may have worked out in Australia. Pumping out more and more ridiculous restrictions on guns may work in the United Kingdom, but it isn't working here, because there are other factors that we need to take into account, that we are not taking into account.
We've tried doing what they did and it isn't working, so we have to try a different approach to addressing the crime in this country. Those who keep advocating for more and more strict gun regulations instead of advocating for other things, thinking that it will solve our country's crime problem, are being insane. That's how you define insanity, by trying the exact same thing over and over and expecting much different results. I think it was Albert Einstein or someone else who came up with that definition. Either way, you clearly see that pumping out more and more crazy regulations and restrictions isn't working here, and, instead of thinking about taking a different approach towards addressing crime, you just advocate for even more and more crazy regulations and restrictions, simply because it worked in a different country, without even looking at the various factors that could be causing those countries to successfully ban guns and have less crime, while causing others to ban guns, and not have less crime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9NrTZPXCDo
How about instead of focusing so much on guns, we take a different approach, like focus on the poverty, gang culture, and homelessness in certain parts of our country? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfHexUuKql4
We're not getting anywhere, nor accomplishing anything, by merely copying other countries, without looking at other things.
Round 3
Pro
#5
I'm going to give you an anecdote, and it was enough for me maybe it will be enough for those who vote I grew up in Cleveland which in the 60s and 70s was much like a war zone still is .I wondered why and i always was aware even at 17 life was complex not simple and not to look for simple answers when so many things including the weather effect how violent how developed or how prosperous a region might be.. i get that; demographics weather standard of living, welfare spending to alleviate poverty.. but in 1976 when i crossed over in canada from detriot to windsor i noticed a distinct lack of gun fire the same was true for huge multicultural cities like toronto and montreal in the 70s the city of quebec (ville du quebec) population half a million went several years without even one homicide in 2015 in ville du quebac there were zero homicides, thanks gun registry!!! you simply cant tell me strict gun laws did not contribute to the safety of that society
also in chicago a city with a per capital homicide rate about in the middle for us cities and about one third the homicide rate in st loius and new orleans souther ncities with lax gun laws , all you need to do to buy a gun is go to the suburb or get on a bus and travel to iowa easy as pie IN CANADA THE SAME LAWS EXIST all over canada, except quebec in 2010 english canada under the conservatives abandoned the long gun registry quebec did not, homicide rates contined to drop in french canada in anglo canada where the registry was abolished? rates have risen steadily.. again you cant convince me thats a co incidence
Con
#6
you simply cant tell me strict gun laws did not contribute to the safety of that society
I'm not trying to tell you that strict gun laws don't contribute to safety. I'm trying to tell you that, if a certain area has incredibly strict gun laws, and yet still has high crime rates, then, instead of just tacking on more and more strict gun laws that already aren't working, you should maybe take a different approach and start focusing on other factors that may be contributing to those high crime rates. If banning guns in places like Canada does in fact lead to a massive drop in crime rate, then those areas should go ahead and ban them, but if they aren't working in a certain area like Chicago, then we take a different approach, not waste time taking the same failed approach that has already failed in Chicago, which is throwing in more and more endless restrictions and regulations which criminals do not care about.
when i crossed over in canada from detriot to windsor i noticed a distinct lack of gun fire
Canada may have lower crime rates after tacking on more and more restrictions on guns, but that isn't the only thing that they have going for them. They also have a generally much more older and/or mature population, more alarm systems and Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras to catch more bad guys, less lead, in gasoline, to impair people's decision-making, more people playing video games rather than going out and getting involved in some illegal/gang activity, some immigrants helping their country, more access to abortions to get rid of unwanted kids who could potentially grow up to become criminals, more community policing, cheaper things to deter thieves since they usually don't go after cheap goods to steal, and more women in positions of power since males seem to be committing these kinds of crimes more often than women. [1] Maybe if we tried taking some of those other different approaches that Canada is taking, than that would actually help reducing the amount of crime in America, as opposed to focusing on guns and only on guns, which is getting us nowhere.
According to another article, "Canada has had a less violent past," they're "more disapproving of violence in Canada," they seem to have "a more unified police system," and also less drug abuse, compared to the United States. [2] Maybe if the United States had some of those traits, then maybe we too could then consider some kind of gun ban, and reasonably expect the desired outcome.
So yeah, Canada's culture and history is also vastly different from the United States, which also explains why they're able to heavily restrict guns and have the desired outcome, unlike the United States, which is not able to have that same desired outcome.
all you need to do to buy a gun is go to the suburb or get on a bus and travel to iowa easy as pie IN CANADA THE SAME LAWS EXIST all over canada
If the United States ever bans guns, then I suppose Mexico would have to ban guns too, since criminals could still simply smuggle guns in from Mexico or Central America, if you banned guns only in the United States. Not only that, but if criminals are already breaking 1 law which prohibits things like murder, aren't they just going to keep breaking other laws like the laws that restrict the guns? Plus, even if you did somehow manage to get rid of all their guns, what's stopping criminals from simply switching to another weapon if you ban guns? Do you have to ban those weapons too?
Instead of focusing only on the guns that criminals use, why don't we focus on why those people are becoming criminals in the first place? Is it because they often grow up in bad environments? Is it because they're often exposed to the wrong things? Is it because they were bullied and/or abused as a child? Is it because they lived in a poor ghetto-like neighborhood with lack of available jobs, forcing them to join a gang just to survive by making a living selling drugs and avoiding police? Is it because our police are worse at dealing with crime than the police force of other countries? Why not address those instead of just guns?
In fact, while Canada may have both strict gun laws and less violent shootings, places like Delaware seem to have less strict gun laws, and, surprisingly, they too seem to have much less violent shootings. In Delaware, for example, you don't need any kind of permit, registration, or license for any gun, and you can openly carry it just about anywhere you go. Plus there are no magazine size restrictions, meaning you can carry a 100-round magazine if you wanted to.
The only restrictions are that you need to be at least a certain age to legally purchase most guns, you have to complete a basic course and pass a basic background check, and you are also not allowed to carry guns in specific areas such as stations. You also have to reapply for a gun permit every 3 years for concealed carry, and you can also have your rights to own or carry a gun revoked by Delaware's Department of Justice, or a judge, if they determine that you are not fit to own a gun. [3]
See? You can have basic restrictions like that, without having such large amounts of ridiculously strict laws that make it so difficult for people to have guns to defend themselves. Delaware also seems to have low homicide rates, despite having less strict gun laws, with only about 10 to 30 homicides per year, compared to a place like Chicago, which has hundreds of homicides per year, despite having way stricter gun laws. This is because, instead of focusing so much on guns, Delaware focuses on other things, like "Increasing the presence of uniformed officers," "Improving the relationships within neighborhoods," and "Improving the relationships between residents and the police." [4]
Also, even though you can also get guns fairly easily in Iowa, Iowa still has basic restrictions similar to Delaware, like how you need to be 21 or older to get a gun, which makes sense since you obviously don't want toddlers going out and getting guns, and you also need to pass a background check, and have a permit, which must be renewed every 5 years, which also makes sense, since, just because someone was mentally stable now doesn't always guarantee they will remain mentally stable later on, so it makes sense to check them again every once in a while to make sure that they are still fit to own a gun. [5]
Despite it being easy to get guns in Iowa, that state too, also has fairly low homicide rates, ranking "among states with least gun violence". [6]
Maybe this is due to the fact that Iowa has less poverty [7] than Illinois [8] and that Iowa also has less homelessness than a place like California. To be more specific, Iowa had like 2,749 homeless people in 2018 [9] while Califnornia had like 129,972 in 2018. [10] When you do the math and divide those numbers, that means that California's homelessness problem was at least 47 times worse than Iowa! Maybe if we addressed that homelessness problem instead of ignoring that homelessness problem in favor of more and more pointless ridiculous gun laws, then just maybe that would actually result in lower crime, or maybe it wouldn't result in lower crime. Either way, we have to take a different approach to addressing the crime in these areas, as opposing to focusing only on the guns. These various factors such as poverty and homelessness could very well be the reason these areas have so much crime, despite already having strict gun laws, and all we're doing is ignoring these other possible factors/variables, while focusing only on guns.
When you have states with mostly armed citizens, criminals are actually less likely to try to attack those areas, since the people will be able to have a fighting chance against the criminal. Criminals love gun-free zones like Chicago, since they know that the people in those areas won't be armed, and are thus unable to fight back, which explains why those areas like Chicago have so much crime. Those people in the gun-free zones are easy targets, but the armed people are not easy targets, and those armed people will put up a fight, and if there's 1 thing criminals hate, it's when their victims/targets are fighting back and have the means to do so, and by the means, I mean the guns. [11]
homicide rates contined to drop in french canada in anglo canada where the registry was abolished? rates have risen steadily.. again you cant convince me thats a co incidence
To determine why rates have risen steadily, we need to examine the cultures, education systems, homelessness ratios, drug usage, police, environments, health care systems, employment ratios, and all of the other various external factors, of all of these areas, in order to determine why rates have risen steadily, instead of just focusing only on guns. Otherwise, we can't simply jump to the conclusion that guns are the problem and that we should just restrict them more universally to solve the problem.
Sources:
Round 4
Con
#8
I want to add to the debate something that TheDredPirateRoberts said in the comments:
when people try to use countries like Australia and Canada don't fall for that. If they want to try and compare you must insist they compare it to itself. Australia for instance never really had a murder problem or a high murder rate. There have been numerous studies about their ban which at best was indeterminate as to any real effect it may have had. Same with Canada, they don't have a constitution or bill of rights like the U.S. they have no right to free speech or anything like the 2a. They are false comparisons.When you look at murder rates in the U.S. look back to the time when guns could be purchased w/o a background check and even mail ordered straight to your house. If guns were the problem should the rates have been much higher back then? And yet they weren't.....
Round 5
Pro
#9
They never had a problem with high violence rates because they always had strict gun laws HOWEVER as low as Australias rates were compared to ours lets look at what occured during the years gun laws were made even stricter starting on a state level in 1989 and ending with a federal ban on self loading rifles well almost , there were exceptions allowed for some hunters of dangerous animals The national homicide rate has decreased from 1.8 per 100,000 people in 1989-90 to 1 per 100,000 in 2013-14.In terms of the homicide rate, it can be argued that Australia is safer than some other countries. In 2012, for example, the US recorded a homicide rate of 4.7 per 100,000 – with 14,827 incidents of homicide.Homicides are the most serious of crimes, with far-reaching implications for both individuals and society in terms of harm. In terms of economic cost, the Australian Institute of Criminology estimated each homicide incident had cost A$2.7 million in 2011.
The outlook for Australia is positive, with a continued reduction in the homicide rate.
However, challenges remain, such as the over-representation of Indigenous people, and that domestic-related homicides still make up the largest number of homicides.https://theconversation.com/three-charts-on-australias-declining-homicide-rates-79654Australia has nearly eliminated mass shootings - here's what the US can learn
New research suggests 1996 law could be behind drastic decrease in firearm mortality
However, challenges remain, such as the over-representation of Indigenous people, and that domestic-related homicides still make up the largest number of homicides.https://theconversation.com/three-charts-on-australias-declining-homicide-rates-79654Australia has nearly eliminated mass shootings - here's what the US can learn
New research suggests 1996 law could be behind drastic decrease in firearm mortality
- and try to remember the over all homicide rate from all causes has been cut IN half that is because guns are much more deadly than any other weapon Ms Andreyeva and Ms Ukert say their research shows the US can learn a few things from Australian gun regulation.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-gun-laws-australia-lessons-a8426846.html
Con
#10
They never had a problem with high violence rates because they always had strict gun laws
Except you never bothered to go into detail about the other factors that have also contributed to their low violence rates, like maybe their culture, or the kind of environment that they have.
HOWEVER as low as Australias rates were compared to ours lets look at what occured during the years gun laws were made even stricter starting on a state level in 1989 and ending with a federal ban on self loading rifles well almost , there were exceptions allowed for some hunters of dangerous animals The national homicide rate has decreased from 1.8 per 100,000 people in 1989-90 to 1 per 100,000 in 2013-14.In terms of the homicide rate
You keep repeating the same arguments that I have already refuted, so I will just have to copy and paste my rebuttal to this same argument, in italics:
When trying to prove any hypothesis, such as the hypothesis that banning guns leads to less crime, you need to make sure no other external factors are influencing this experiment. If you don't make sure other external factors influence this, then you're going to have these situations where some areas ban guns and it works, while other areas ban guns and it doesn't. You can't conduct an experiment to prove that banning guns leads to less crime without eliminating and/or regulating all of the other variables that play a role in crime. You can't properly claim that we just need pump out more and more strict gun laws, and that doing so will solve the problem, without first addressing the other things that also play a role in crime besides guns.
Banning guns may have worked out in Australia. Pumping out more and more ridiculous restrictions on guns may work in the United Kingdom, but it isn't working here, because there are other factors that we need to take into account, that we are not taking into account.
We've tried doing what they did and it isn't working, so we have to try a different approach to addressing the crime in this country.
The outlook for Australia is positive, with a continued reduction in the homicide rate.
You still haven't explained if this is due to ONLY guns being banned, or if this is due to the kind of culture that they have, the kind of people that they have, the kind of education system that they have, the kind of police force they have, or the kind of environment that these people grow up in, compared to the United States.
However, challenges remain, such as the over-representation of Indigenous people, and that domestic-related homicides still make up the largest number of homicides.https://theconversation.com/three-charts-on-australias-declining-homicide-rates-79654Australia has nearly eliminated mass shootings
Your source only shows that crime seemed to go down in Australia after guns were banned, not because guns were banned, and there is difference between crime going down after a ban and crime going down because of a ban. This is again, the Post Hoc fallacy, which I already addressed in rounds 1 and 2. There was a correlation between banning guns and less crime in Australia, but we don't know if banning guns specifically caused this, since there are many other factors that play a role in crime, such as mental health, childhood, environment, influences, drugs, abuse, and all sorts of other factors that are not being taken into account.
Your source also states that guns aren't even the main weapon used in crime, but rather that knives, "other" weapons, and "no weapon" are all used in crime more than guns.
- here's what the US can learn
There's nothing the United States can learn from Australia here, since we have tried doing what they did, which is putting heavy restrictions on guns in California and Chicago, but it isn't working, so obviously there are other factors that play a role in crime besides guns. To commit a crime, you need 3 things: the means to commit the crime, the motive to commit the crime, and the opportunity to commit the grime. Guns can be a means to commit crime, but we also need to focus on why people commit crime (which is the motive), as well as how they got the opportunity to use the weapon to commit the crime (which is the opportunity). https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/polarized/201212/means-motive-and-opportunity
New research suggests 1996 law could be behind drastic decrease in firearm mortality
Yeah, it suggests that it could be behind the decrease, but it doesn't actually prove that it is in fact the decrease, and there is difference.
try to remember the over all homicide rate from all causes has been cut IN half that is because guns are much more deadly than any other weapon
Yeah that's why we need guns to defend ourselves; because they're much more deadly than other weapons, and can thus defend ourselves much more effectively and easily than other weapons.
the US can learn a few things from Australian gun regulation.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-gun-laws-australia-lessons-a8426846.html
That other source of yours reads:
Australians must wait 28 days before they can buy a gun
"If I want to commit a mass shooting and I come to the store to buy a gun, but I'm told I have to wait 28 days, I might change my mind completely."
Then it immediately contradicts itself by saying:
"Even if individual US states imposed strict gun control, firearms could still easily flow in from other states or nearby countries,"
If you think that making a law requiring people to wait 28 days to get a firearm is realistically going to work in the United States, it's not. Criminals who are determined to get their hands on a gun are not going to change their minds completely simply because the law says they have to wait 28 days for a gun. Criminals can simply steal one that somebody else already has, buy one on the black market, or have one of their friends who can pass background checks get the gun for the criminal and give it to the criminal. Plus, even if you banned guns fully and outright, criminals can still build their own guns from parts. You can ban guns, but you can never enforce a ban on materials and small parts that could be used to build guns and ammunition.
You can find youtube videos instructing people how to build basic firearms from basic common materials like cardboard, paper, plastic, glass, string, rubber, aluminum foil, wood, and other common materials. To ban all the firearms means you would have to ban all those materials too.
If the United States did carry out a gun ban, places like Canada, Mexico, and every and all Central American and South American countries would also have to put forth their own national gun ban as well, so that you can't simply go to another country to get guns, otherwise, a national gun ban would be useless and would do more harm than good, since criminals would not care about laws, and ignore those laws, and they would still have guns, while the law-abiding citizens would not have guns to defend themselves, and would have to rely on police, who can oftentimes take too long to get there and are not 100% reliable.
A national gun ban could work in Australia since that country is basically one big island isolated from other countries physically, so a criminal can't bring in guns from someplace else easily, whereas the United States is not like that.
To reduce crime in places like Chicago, we need to address other things the gangs, the poverty, the homelessness, the drugs, the children growing up without fathers and/or mothers, the education system so that these kids learn not to associate with bad people and bad lifestyles when they grow up, and so on. We can't simply keep focusing on guns while ignoring all of the other variables.
Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:
Arguments:
In summary, con successfully argues that "Getting rid of the guns does not get rid of crime, especially since people could just switch to knives or something." Pro tries to counter with: "you simply cant tell me strict gun laws did not contribute to the safety of that society" but this ignores that con already successfully did just that.
Not grading this more, due to pro choosing to engage in plagiarism in R5, rather than making his own case, or at least giving proper credit to whoise case he's stealing (not to mention, someone else's case will not be a proper reply to con's specific words).
Sources:
Fantastic work from con, making pro's actual source available... Incidentally, as a voter I am fine with research papers to which only the abstract is accessible (like con, I am not going to read the 50 pages...); however, citing churnalism talking about that same abstract is pointless (why cite the article talking about an article, instead of the real McCoy?).
Otherwise pro had a couple poorly integrated sources, whereas con had about a dozen well integrated ones.
Conduct:
Missed round and plagiarism.
So on the previous site I served on the Vote Review Board, which gave me a very good eye for types of misconduct. Now if anything feels fishy, I copy a snippet or two of their case into Google, and more often then not it turns out they stole the work.
The big giveaways are unusual formatting or word choice, but even a shift in punctuation can do it.
On S&G, I only penalize it if two conditions are met: 1 it was enough of a distraction from the debate, and 2 that I'm in the mood to put in the effort.
You caught Billbatard plagiarising? Impressive. I wouldn't have known, although I suppose it was suspicious that Billbatard's grammar was bad for the first 3 rounds, but then at round 5, his grammar suddenly drastically improved and he was actually using proper punctuation. I guess that alone must have what made you suspicious about potential plagiarism. When you observe how someone writes, whether they have decent grammar or poor grammar, and then suddenly that way of writing drastically changes, that is one of the ways teachers and college professors begin to suspect plagiarism, because it suggests that it may not actually be their own words.
Still, I find it odd that you tied spelling and grammar even though Billbatard's spelling and grammar was like elementary school level or something.
This is a book on Complete English Grammar Rules:
http://93.174.95.29/main/2239000/d97cbedd58c608801e6bff8ed30da269/%28The%20Farlex%20Grammar%20Book%29%20Farlex%20International%20-%20Complete%20English%20Grammar%20Rules_%20Examples%2C%20Exceptions%2C%20Exercises%2C%20and%20Everything%20You%20Need%20to%20Master%20Proper%20Grammar.%201-Farlex%20International%20%282016%29.pdf
Anyone who visits this link will have a 3.47-megabyte PDF file automatically downloaded, which is the book.
It's a good book for those who struggle to have proper spelling and grammar.
when people try to use countries like Australia and Canada don't fall for that. If they want to try and compare you must insist they compare it to itself. Australia for instance never really had a murder problem or a high murder rate. There have been numerous studies about their ban which at best was indeterminate as to any real effect it may have had. Same with Canada, they don't have a constitution or bill of rights like the U.S. they have no right to free speech or anything like the 2a. They are false comparisons.
When you look at murder rates in the U.S. look back to the time when guns could be purchased w/o a background check and even mail ordered straight to your house. If guns were the problem should the rates have been much higher back then? And yet they weren't.....
actually nvm I see you addressed most of that already, good job.
You tagged me, did you delete it?
I appreciate the advice
Great argument. You should attack how guns save lives and the effects on murder rates when guns were banned(England, for ex.). Look back at my debates for some ideas.
I'd be interested in debating when you specify what type of gun control you want to advocate for.