On Balance, The US Should NOT Tighten Gun Control Policies
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 7 votes and with 22 points ahead, the winner is...
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One of my strongest debate topics I have yet to debate on this site. Burden of proof is shared. Pro will argue US should keep its loose gun control policy, or even loosen it further (if possible). Con will argue for stricter regulations or even ban on gun ownership.
Good luck!
- Gun Facts, "Gun Facts | Gun Control and Crime." Gun Facts. 2013. Web. 11 Mar. 2016
- Gun Owners of America, "Just For Skeptics." Fact Sheet: Guns Save Lives. Gun Owners of America, 16 Oct. 2008. Web. 13 Jan. 2016. http://www.gunowners.org/sk0802htm.htm
- Pew Research Center, "Why Own a Gun? Protection Is Now Top Reason." Pew Research Center for the People and the Press RSS. Pew Research Center, 12 Mar. 2013. Web. 5 Jan. 2016.
- US Fish and Wildlife Service, “2011 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation”. http://v.gd/hunts ;
- Chapman, Steve, "Hillary Clinton, gun buybacks and a win for the NRA", The Chicago Tribune. 14 Dec 2015. http://v.gd/buyback ;
- Cookie, Charles. "Gun-Control Dishonesty." National Review Online. National Review, 13 Dec. 2013. Web. 5 Jan. 2016. http://v.gd/gunfail ;
- Ingraham, Christopher. "Guns in America: For Every Criminal Killed in Self-defense, 34 Innocent People Die." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 19 June 2015. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.
- Klimas, Liz. "Guns and Crime: What the Statistics Really Say and How They’re Interpreted in the Debate." The Blaze. The Blaze, 7 May 2013. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.
- Kopel, David. "Mexico's Gun Control Laws: A Model for the United States?" Washington Post. The Washington Post, 16 Apr. 2014. Web. 24 Feb. 2016.
- Taverner, Ben, “Despite Firearm Restrictions, Gun Violence Kills Five People Every Hour in Brazil”, http://v.gd/braz2 ;
- Volokh, Eugene. "Do Citizens (not Police Officers) with Guns Ever Stop Mass Shootings?" Washington Post. The Washington Post, 3 Oct. 2015. Web. 5 Jan. 2016,
- Gun Control - "laws that control the sale and use of guns and who is allowed to own them:" [1]
- Tighten - "to make a rule, system, or law stronger and more difficult to ignore:" [2]
- The word "should" can refer to this in the legal sense or the moral sense - therefore I can argue that it would legally be preferable or morally preferable to tighten gun control laws.
- The phrase "on balance" refers to the impacts of this debate, thus, the links are very important. If Pro or myself cannot justify the links between a claim and an impact then it is invalid.
- The word "policies" implies that we are not discussing one specific policy or gun law, but gun laws as a principle - thus any impacts which are directed to one policy is invalid unless it is representative.
- Higher density of firearms per citizen does not equate to more safety or less crime [7] [8] [9]
- Guns do not typically increase the success rate of intervening in a shooter event [10] [11]
- Gun laws are typically effective at reducing gun violence [12] [13]
gun-owners believe that they ought to have and keep guns. Polls given to gun-owners show the average gun-owner believes that stricter gun laws “will lead to stricter laws that take guns away from citizens” (Pew Research Center, 2013). They also believe that “owning a gun makes them safer”, as well as that “stricter guns laws ‘give too much power to the government over average citizens’”, and most importantly, “gun rights are more important than controlling gun ownership” (P.R.C, 2013).
With the gun-owners’ opinions displayed in such a fashion, it will be impractical and difficult to take away the guns from them, with a frustrated and unwilling population remaining while the criminals can obtain guns with other methods.
Gun control advocates claim that self-defense is inefficient, one even stating that “for each justifiable gun homicide, there is 34 criminal gun homicide” (Ingraham, Christopher). However, this can be a misleading figure, because many potential murders are prevented but not reported since they never occurred.
guns are used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense, meaning 6,850 times per day--overall 80 times more often to protect than to kill the citizens (Gun Owners of America). In addition to self-defense as a commonly used tactic by citizens
hunting and sports are also a wide use for guns, with just the year 2011 alone reporting more than 3,000,000 firearm-buyers spending a total of about $3,000,000,000 (US Fish and Wildlife Service). The revenue earned from guns could not only benefit the companies, but also the government.
A) In addition to guns being able to be used in self-defense, guns are not that often used by criminals. B) Studies display that more than 99% of guns bought are used for non-criminal purposes (Gun Facts). C) 90% of criminal violence doesn’t involve a gun; even in crimes in which the offender had a gun, they did not use or threaten to use the gun (Gun Facts)...D). Adding to further simple/aggravated assaults, knives had an equal percentage of use compared to firearms (Klimas, Liz).
Current-day countries' diverse take on gun control strengthens the argument that gun control policies have no notable effects. Australia is famous for its “effective gun control policy”, with its take-back of guns within 1996 leading to a seemingly incredible downward trend to nearly no gun homicide rates in only about one decade (Chapman, Steve).
Some countries prove that Australia is just a cherry-picked country
Concession
Concession.
But here is the RDF:
https://www.google.com/search?q=budgies&newwindow=1&rlz=1C1GCEB_enNO937NO937&sxsrf=ALeKk03PmRmbMEQQKMsi4s-j8Aj62Ppp_Q:1613030678043&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwik8c3Er-HuAhXwkosKHeZUA9oQ_AUoAXoECBAQAw&biw=1280&bih=610
Concession (and widening the safety net due to a recent voting issue)
Concession.
Concession.
Pro conceded. I agree the topic was vague enough that it gave Con too much ground (i.e. they could support any particular gun control policy) and Pro’s case wasn’t specific to the policies they supported.
Feedback to Pro: (1) Make your case specific to the topic. As you noted, your case was more a case against banning guns than one against any gun regulation or tightening of gun control policies. (2) A lot of your case wasn’t an argument against tightening policies, but rather preemptively rebutting arguments for tightening. I’d spend more time on the first type of argument, as that’s the type that can win you the debate (whereas the second type just mitigates Con’s potential arguments). (3) I think your structure was a bit hard to follow. It seemed like you were jumping from one argument to the next without much transition. Perhaps some clear headings and following a structure of “claim, explanation, impact” could be useful.
Feedback to Con: (1) I think it’d have been useful for Con to give examples of gun control policies for which Pro’s arguments didn’t apply. (2) In general, simply citing a source doesn’t mean your argument is presumed true. You need to summarize what the source says in the character limit of the debate, because judges don’t read every individual source. It’s also useful to add more logic/analysis to your argument. (3) I think you dropped a lot of Pro’s arguments, including (a) the claim that guns are often trafficked so gun regulation is ineffective, (b) the argument that gun control limits the ability of people to respond to state oppression, and (c) the argument on autonomy.
"The same vote would be tolerable if it did not assign points."
Good Idea, I will keep that in mind.
It's not a big deal, especially as it did not seek to change the outcome... But please don't do it again. The same vote would be tolerable if it did not assign points.
I apologize. I am new to debating online, and I am sorry for creating inconvenience. Please forgive me.
If you're so confident you can "harm me" than actually make a valid point. Otherwise you are creating needless trouble for our moderators. Which is at the very least a jerk move. Do you know why Debate.org is such a bad site nowadays? Because of a lack of moderation. Moderation is what keeps this site afloat, please refrain from any more immature bouts of "troll voting".
Lmao.
It was obviously a troll vote - I know the system and had I really wanted to harm you I would have made a valid point.
Not even going to open the template for this... What's going on to make you cast such an intentionally abysmal vote?
The now deleted vote was as follows, for 7 points to pro...
This vote will most certainly be reported. But that's fine. Here is the RDF:
https://www.google.com/search?q=budgies&newwindow=1&rlz=1C1GCEB_enNO937NO937&sxsrf=ALeKk03PmRmbMEQQKMsi4s-j8Aj62Ppp_Q:1613030678043&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwik8c3Er-HuAhXwkosKHeZUA9oQ_AUoAXoECBAQAw&biw=1280&bih=610
I thought at the very least you had a valid reason for voting.... seriously? Are you that sore at our disagreement that you want to include that kind of vote? Wow, I used to have a much higher opinion of you.
In terms of your observation, I agree that the topic doesn’t bind you to a specific advocacy or particular gun control policy. But it doesn’t stop you from having one if you want to. Some regulations, like universal background checks or training requirements, are fairly easy to defend. But even if you don’t want to have a strict or specific proposal, you can still use examples of gun control policies for which Pro’s arguments didn’t apply. Those would help prove your responses on Pro’s arguments being sometimes untrue of many gun control policies, but without requiring you to make arguments centered around exclusively them.
Thanks for the vote and feedback, the reason I was vague is because of the specific resolution - to use a specific example would be ignoring the second observation I made of the resolution. I don't like to make contradictory arguments. I made the basic claim and provided evidence for each argument structure - and those dropped points were irrelevant to the debate. A lot of the structure was because of the specific resolution.
go ahead and challenge whoever you will.
There seemed to be a lot of agreement with you, would you care if I were to make a debate: "On balance the US should tighten gun control policies"?
It might be more interesting to look at the correlation between the amount of gun restrictions and the level of liberty citizens enjoy.
the sourcing is misleading, most of it outdated and not correctly interpreted or just flatly wrong - I look forward to your response Seldiora.
if you make the debating time a week you got yourself a debate
Yeah, I'm of a similar mind to Ragnar. I've argued for the other side before, but my thoughts about gun control have changed since then, and I find the position of pushing for increased gun control to be a little too weak for me to argue right now.
Good setup.
I'm instantly torn, since I believe both sides are probably correct (some gun laws should be tightened, others should be loosened).
nah, I agree with you
dare you challenge my well-written essay written from years ago? It may not be as well researched as Smoking Ban, but the kritik here is definitely not as easy...