Instigator / Pro
6
1417
rating
27
debates
24.07%
won
Topic
#3387

Gun control is bad

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
6
Better sources
2
4
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
2
2

After 2 votes and with 8 points ahead, the winner is...

RationalMadman
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
4
Time for argument
Two days
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
14
1687
rating
555
debates
68.11%
won
Description

No information

Round 1
Pro
#1
My first argument against gun control is that criminals - by definition - do not obey the law, so why would they try to get their guns legally? 90% of all gun deaths are done with illegal guns. Criminals either get their guns by having someone else buy it for them, Steal the guns from legal owners, or buy them from illegal gun markets. 

my evidence:


My second argument is that criminals fear armed civilians more than they fear the police. 

according to https://www.wyff4.com/article/how-often-are-guns-used-to-stop-crimes/10033021# it is stated that "Gun Owners of America states that armed citizens kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year, 1,527 to 606. GOA also said that: “Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers."
According to https://www.uslawshield.com/criminals-fear-good-guy-with-gun/ it is stated that "Criminals don’t just fear armed civilians; they go out of their way to avoid them.
According to research completed by the U.S. Department of Justice, private gun ownership influences the behavior of criminals. In this study, over 1,800 imprisoned felons across the country were surveyed on their opinions of firearms.(1) Here is what they learned:
One-third of criminals questioned had encountered an armed victim. The study found 34% of the felons had been scared off, shot at, wounded, or even captured by a gun-owning victim.
56% of those interviewed agreed that criminals intentionally avoid armed victims. If criminals know the individual has a weapon, they chose to target another victim.
Basically, criminals fear the armed civilian more than law enforcement.
There are multiple reasons for this, but the most common include: police are rarely at the crime scene in a timely manner and they are required to follow “policy and procedure.” On the other hand, the average civilian does not receive procedure defense training like the police, so can—and will—act in whatever way they deem necessary to protect themselves."
and "The majority of civilians who own and carry firearms do so for self-defense and personal protection; not to become heroes.
Yet a good guy with a gun is not a myth when it comes to public shootings. These individuals can stop shooters and significantly reduce the number of deaths and injuries. The 2017 Sutherland Springs Church shooting and the 2019 shooting at West Freeway Church of Christ brought the reality of a good guy with a gun into the public eye, but armed civilians have stopped mass casualties many times before, helping make communities safer.
The police agree. When surveyed, almost 90% believe having an armed civilian onsite during an active shooting would decrease casualties. In this same study, when given options on how to reduce public shootings, law enforcement officers’ #1 answer was “more permissive concealed carry policies for civilians, which topped other answers, like more armed guards/paid security personnel, improved background screening to determine mental wellness of gun purchasers for gun purchasers, and more regulatory legislation on assault weapons and ammo magazines.”(5)
Now that you have the facts, it’s easy to see how carrying a weapon and preparing for any situation can be essential to protecting yourself and your family.
Regardless of your stance, U.S. LawShield understands your concern and we’re here to keep you protected and informed."

argument 2: Places with less gun control have much lower crime rates:
according tohttps://fee.org/articles/guns-prevent-thousands-of-crimes-every-day-research-show/ it states that "Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year, or 6,849 every day. Most often, the gun is never fired, and no blood (including the criminal’s) is shed.
  • Every year, 400,000 life-threatening violent crimes are prevented using firearms.
  • 60 percent of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed. Forty percent of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they thought the victim might be armed. 
  • Felons report that they avoid entering houses where people are at home because they fear being shot.
  • Fewer than 1 percent of firearms are used in the commission of a crime."
According to https://crpa.org/news/blogs/ten-powerful-arguments-against-gun-control/"There’s still murder in countries where handguns are banned. The United Kingdom banned handguns in 1997 after a man shot 16 elementary students and then shot himself. Let’s look at the UK’s homicide rate before, during, and after the ban… In 1996, the murder rate was 1.12 per 100,000 people. In 1997, it rose to 1.24. In 1998, the rate rose even further to 1.43. And in 2002, it peaked at 2.1 homicides per 100,000. Just because you ban guns, doesn’t mean people won’t find other ways to massacre other human beings."

Ironically, places with gun control have higher crime rates as according to https://www.criminalattorneycincinnati.com/comparing-gun-control-measures-to-gun-related-homicides-by-state/. The site also lists states with most violent crime and how gun friendly they are.
here's the list(note that the number surrounded by the "()" shows how friendly the state is to guns, and the number before that shows violent crime rate.
  1. Louisiana: 11.0 (3)
  2. Mississippi: 10.2 (5)
  3. Alabama: 9.5 (4)
  4. Missouri: 8.5 (5)
  5. Maryland: 7.4 (1)
  6. South Carolina: 7.4 (3)
  7. Tennessee: 6.7 (4)
  8. Illinois: 6.5 (2)
  9. Arkansas: 6.2 (3)
  10. Georgia: 6.2 (4)
  11. Alaska: 6.0 (5)
  12. New Mexico: 5.7 (4)
  13. Oklahoma: 5.7 (4)
  14. Indiana: 5.3 (4)
  15. Delaware: 5.1 (2)
  16. North Carolina: 5.0 (4)
  17. Nevada: 4.8 (3)
  18. Ohio: 4.8 (4)
  19. Kentucky: 4.7 (4)
  20. Florida: 4.6 (4)"

Argument 3: Gun control violates the second amendment(this one is pretty obvious).




Con
#2
To be honest, I wasn't sure how to approach this debate. Based on not having much time left to write due to a combination of factors both IRL and in the sense that I kept going back and forth on how to structure my Rounds, I'm going to use Round 1 for no sourcing or facts at all but questions and statements. It's up to Pro how to reply or dismiss them, we'll see how I have to react in Round 2.

2nd amendment point

The second amendment says 'well-regulated militia' you literally need, not just can have but necessarily require, gun control in order to regulate your nation's armed 'militia'. There is absolutely no conflict between gun control and the second amendment.

Pro actually thinks gun control is good, he just feels it's not able to be implemented

This debate is not only about the US, this is clear from the title not saying 'in America' and because Pro himself looks to UK to prove some things. It seems to be that Pro's biggest gripe with gun control is the doubt he has that it can be successfully achieved.

The 'criminals will always get them' notion is somewhat true for the US if it's only one or two State that dedicate to it. There is a reason that the best gun control on the planet is generally seen in islands dedicated to severe gun control (UK, Japan, Australia and NZ - yes I know the shooting but that was a rare occasion and actually his guns were mostly legally obtained). The reason is... smuggling is much easier to police as there's only one means in (ferry/ship, barely anyone is stupid enough to try to sneak it past airport security). 

The fact is if the US dedicated to a clamp down on illicit firearms, with mass-spread sting operations, heavy campaigning (so the average American realises how America actually can and will be better off if illegal firearms aren't obtainable) it is so feasible to have one of the best gun controls on the planet achieved and the reason why is that US has guns available to citizens and doesn't necessarily need to alter that at all.

The fact that guns are available to citizens who pass the gun control checks is all the more reason why Americans that enjoy legally owning firearms would join in happily and eagerly with a clamp down on illegal guns because they don't want gun crime to keep justifying gun bans.


Pro believes that criminals 'fear armed citizens MORE than armed cops'

I am confused what point Pro was making. Do you think your average shop owner is going to wield a gun steadily, fast and accurate enough to outshoot a criminal? No. Robbers rarely kill in the first place because barely any victims fight back, those hero-fighters you see on the News are the 1% pretty much.

Does a criminal fear an armed citizen more than an unarmed one? Yeah, probably. Does the criminal who thinks they're about to go to Prison for 15 years or more have more likelihood to actually think it's worth firing at a cop than at an armed citizen who is not going to arrest them? Yeah, probably... Oh, you now see why the stats are how they are?

Of course a criminal when cornered, may conclude in their sociopathic mindset that it's worth the gamble to fire at cops more likely than they will conclude it's worth murdering the citizen that's armed who will probably just let them run away. You need to think about the situations that arise with both, not just pure statistics.

US gun control vs gun violence stats are backwards correlation

When your state has been ravaged by gun violence, it's more likely to want to employ stricter gun control, however because smuggling across states is so simple in the US, overall, and the citizens don't truly loathe guns yet (well, not enough do) the propensity for people to take part in and/or turn a blind eye to illicit gun trade is very plausible in states that try to come down harder on guns.

In other words, the reason there's more gun violence in States that have stricter gun control (not all, but a decent enough amount) is that it's that very gun violence that led the citizens to vote in a governor that would push for that but the enforcement is too difficult because of cross-state smuggling.
Round 2
Pro
#3
response:

To start, a gun - is basically just bunch of metal, it doesn't have a brain, it doesn't have a mind, it doesn't have a computer chip or programs to tell it how to function, it cannot move by itself, and it will not sprout legs and start shooting everybody. Because the gun can't fire on its own, it needs a person to use it, a man

RationalMadman I do not think gun control is good(As the title suggests I am anti gun control). The fact that gun control does not work is proof that gun control is bad.

In our modern world were there are some far left pc idiot sjws who want to defund the police. If such a thing as defunding the police were to happen you wouldn't be protected by the police, so you need a gun to defend yourself.

The very reasons criminals would fear an armed citizen is the following: Lets say you are a burglar going to rob a house and man presents himself and he's got a gun. You don't know how skilled the armed civilian is with guns, he could be extremely trained and skilled and could annihilate all your hopes and plans easily, or he could suck at it. There's a chance that the latter could happen, but if you had common sense, you wouldn't take any chances and just run away.

evidence(make sure to read every single one):

this website states the following: "Our Second Amendment reads: “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.” and in the same place it states "Raising the minimum age to purchase firearms wouldn’t have changed 29 of the 30 worst mass-shootings in U.S. history. Twenty-six of the 30 were committed by someone 21 years of age or older, one (No. 4) was committed by a 20-year-old who stole his mother’s firearms, another (No. 7) was committed by students who used a pistol they couldn’t legally purchase, and a third (No. 22) was committed by a 16-year-old who couldn’t purchase any firearms legally." and "Gun-free zones are a magnet for mass shooters — almost every mass shooting we have experienced has occurred in a gun-free zone."

It is logical that these monsters prefer unarmed victims. In fact, most of the shooters are stopped once they are confronted with armed resistance. If politicians believe that gun-free zones work, why do they hide behind armed security themselves?

"Our Constitution does not give us any rights. Rather, it affirms rights that we already have in order to safeguard them. Note that the “right of the people to keep and bear arms” isn’t given by the language above. Instead, our right to keep and bear arms, which exists outside of the Constitution, is protected from infringement.

The militia is mentioned as the goal for the protection of our right to keep and bear arms — it is not a requirement. A helpful analog from an unknown author goes like this: “A well-educated electorate, being necessary to the preservation of a free society, the right of the people to read and compose books, shall not be infringed.”

In this example, it should be easy to see that the right to read and compose books is not reserved only to those that are registered voters or well-educated. Instead, the goal is a well-educated electorate, for which tools of education are needed. Likewise, our right to keep and bear arms is protected in the event a well-regulated militia is needed to defend our country."

this website states:"Liberty isn’t the only thing likely to be lost when gun laws are passed to appease emotions over reason, evidence, logic, and rights. Lives will most assuredly be lost, too. Lots of them.

This raises a point amplified in another context almost two centuries ago by Frederic Bastiat in his famous essay with a title that sums it up, “That Which is Seen and That Which is Not Seen.”

How many lives are actually saved by gun ownership? This is a supremely important question that the grandstanders and ideologues usually—and conveniently—ignore. It’s a matter that came immediately to my mind when I learned of an incident here in my own town of Newnan, Georgia, a few days ago. The headline in the Newnan Times-Herald read, “Man Hospitalized After Being Shot Outside Bar.”

A little after 1:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, August 17, police arrived at Fat Boys Bar & Grill to respond to a shooting. A customer had threatened other patrons, prompting the establishment’s security to forcibly remove him. Enraged at being kicked out, he declared he was going to get a gun “and shoot the place up.”

This very angry (and possibly intoxicated) man then busted the window out of a friend’s car in the parking lot, grabbed a .40 caliber handgun from inside the car, and began firing in the air. In the meantime, Ben McCoy, a man who witnessed all of this from inside his own vehicle, happened to have his rifle with him. Before he could use it, he was shot four times by the man wielding the .40 caliber handgun, who then fled into the woods.

Fortunately, despite being hit in the chest, stomach, left arm and right thigh, McCoy is recuperating, and the assailant was quickly apprehended. No one was killed, but the situation would likely have been tragically different if Ben McCoy and his rifle hadn’t distracted the gunman.

Of course, in this particular incident it’s most unfortunate that an innocent man was shot. Don’t lose sight of the fact that his very presence, with a rifle, still prevented what could have been a bloodbath that might have even killed him too. What’s far more common is innocent gun owners using or brandishing a weapon and saving lives without any injuries at all except sometimes for the assailant. I chose this example because it was local and I wanted to express appreciation to Mr. McCoy." and later it states"I checked online and found some fascinating numbers. A good website with footnotes and references to authoritative sources is GunFacts.info. There I learned the following:

Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year, or 6,849 every day. Most often, the gun is never fired, and no blood (including the criminal’s) is shed.
Every year, 400,000 life-threatening violent crimes are prevented using firearms.
60 percent of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed. Forty percent of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they thought the victim might be armed.
Felons report that they avoid entering houses where people are at home because they fear being shot.
Fewer than 1 percent of firearms are used in the commission of a crime.
If you doubt the objectivity of the site above, it’s worth pointing out that the Center for Disease Control, in a report ordered by President Obama in 2012 following the Sandy Hook Massacre, estimated that the number of crimes prevented by guns could be even higher—as many as 3 million annually, or some 8,200 every day.

Another excellent source of information on this topic (and many more current issues) is the Gun Control page at JustFacts.org. (Full disclosure: I serve on the board of directors of JustFacts because I believe in the organization’s objectiveness, accuracy, and integrity.)"

Gun control advocates will say "but most good guys with guns don't prevent mass shootings" but the very reason is that gun free zones don't allow people to use guns. And gun free zones are in fact places that attract mass shooters the most.

https://www.offthegridnews.com/current-events/7-mass-shootings-that-were-stopped-by-lawful-gun-owners/ (make sure to copy and paste the entire thing)






You: "I'm going to use Round 1 for no sourcing or facts at all but questions and statements."
me: There's a problem with this statement - that is that in order to prove a point, you have to provide evidence. In school you have been taught to provide evidence when you write an essay, news reports all have to give evidence, In order to verify claims, you need evidence.

response towards "US gun control vs gun violence stats are backwards correlation": It's not really a backwards correlation if you think about it. Let's say if completely law abiding citizen(let's call him guy A), who doesn't own a gun(because he can't get one legally) gets encountered by a criminal with a gun(who smuggled it) who came out of nowhere. The person A doesn't own a gun, so he looks for his phone to call 911(but doesn't find the phone). The criminal is about to shoot person a., but then a legally gun owning stranger(let's call him guy B) passes by and sees the criminal and the victim; guy B grabs his gun, accurately points at the criminal, and shoots him(criminal). The criminal is dead and guy A is saved. And all the evidence given prior should be more than enough evidence.


Con
#4
Due to IRL technical and busy-ness issues, I have to write this last minute.

I have 40 mins to write this on a phone.

Addressing the delusion Pro has of gun controlled countries having relatively higher gun crime the more they controlled guns.

In order to push this narrative, Pro specifically looked to the UK and told us that murder rates went slightly but steadily upwards over 4-5 years once gun control was introduced.

This forgets how less advanced law enforcement was back then
and furthermore did in no shape or form explore how much higher or lower the rates would have been had the UK not tried to control guns.

Please click any blue text for further sourcing.
1) America has six times as many firearm homicides as Canada, and nearly 16 times as many as Germany
Javier Zarracina/VoxThis chart, compiled using 2012 United Nations data collected by Simon Rogers for the Guardian, shows that America far and away leads other developed countries when it comes to gun-related homicides. Why? Extensive reviews of the research, compiled by the Harvard School of Public Health’s Injury Control Research Center, suggest the answer is pretty simple: The US is an outlier on gun violence because it has way more guns than other developed nations.

3) There have been more than 2,500 mass shootings since Sandy Hook
Kavya Sukumar/VoxIn December 2012, a gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and killed 20 children, six adults, and himself. Since then, there have been more than 2,500 mass shootings as of July 2020.

The number comes from the Gun Violence Archive, which hosts a database that has tracked mass shootings since 2013. But since some shootings go unreported, the database is likely missing some, as well as the details of some of the events.
The tracker uses a fairly broad definition of “mass shooting”: It includes not just shootings in which four or more people were murdered, but shootings in which four or more people were shot at all (excluding the shooter).
Even under this broad definition, it’s worth noting that mass shootings make up less than 2 percent of America’s firearm deaths, which totaled nearly 40,000 in 2017 alone.

4) On average, there is around one mass shooting for each day in America
Christopher Ingraham pointed out at the Washington Post in 2015. Under the broader definition of mass shootings, America has around one mass shooting a day.

5) States with more guns have more gun deaths
Mother JonesUsing data from a 2016 study in Injury Prevention and the Centers for Disease Control and PreventionMother Jones put together the chart above that shows states with more guns tend to have far more gun deaths, including homicides and suicides. This has been found across the empirical research: “Within the United States, a wide array of empirical evidence indicates that more guns in a community leads to more homicide,” David Hemenway, the Harvard Injury Control Research Center’s director, wrote in Private Guns, Public Health.

6) It’s not just the US: Developed countries with more guns also have more gun deaths
America is only an outlier when it comes to homicides and, specifically, gun violence, based on 2000 data from Jeffrey Swanson at Duke University.

As Zack Beauchamp explained for Vox, a breakthrough analysis in the 1990s by UC Berkeley’s Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins found that the US does not, contrary to the old conventional wisdom, have more crime in general than other Western industrial nations. Instead, the US appears to have more lethal violence — and that’s driven in large part by the prevalence of guns.

“A series of specific comparisons of the death rates from property crime and assault in New York City and London show how enormous differences in death risk can be explained even while general patterns are similar,” Zimring and Hawkins wrote. “A preference for crimes of personal force and the willingness and ability to use guns in robbery make similar levels of property crime 54 times as deadly in New York City as in London.”

8) States with tighter gun control laws have fewer gun-related deaths
Zara Matheson/Martin Prosperity InstituteWhen economist Richard Florida took a look at gun deaths and other social indicators in 2011, he found that higher populations, more stress, more immigrants, and more mental illness didn’t correlate with more gun deaths. But he did find one telling correlation: States with tighter gun control laws have fewer gun-related deaths. (Read more in Florida’s “The Geography of Gun Deaths.”)

This is backed by other research: A 2016 review of 130 studies in 10 countries, published in Epidemiologic Reviews, found that new legal restrictions on owning and purchasing guns tended to be followed by a drop in gun violence — a strong indicator that restricting access to guns can save lives.

9) Still, gun homicides (like all homicides) have declined over the past couple of decades
The good news is that firearm homicides, like all homicides and crime, have declined over the past several decades.

One theory that researchers have widely debunked is the idea that more guns have deterred crime — in fact, the opposite may be true, based on research compiled by the Harvard School of Public Health’s Injury Control Center.

10) Most gun deaths are suicides
Although America’s political debate about guns tends to focus on grisly mass shootings and murders, a majority of gun-related deaths in the US are suicides. As Dylan Matthews explained for Vox, this is actually one of the most compelling reasons for reducing access to guns: There is a lot of research that shows greater access to guns dramatically increases the risk of suicide.

12) Guns allow people to kill themselves much more easily
Estelle Caswell/VoxPerhaps the key reason access to guns so strongly contributes to suicides is that guns are much deadlier than alternatives like cutting and poison.

Jill Harkavy-Friedman, vice president of research for the American Foundation for Suicide Preventionpreviously explained that this is why reducing access to guns can be so important to preventing suicides: Just stalling an attempt or making it less likely to result in death makes a huge difference.

13) Policies that limit access to guns have decreased suicides
Estelle Caswell/VoxWhen countries reduced access to guns, they saw a drop in the number of firearm suicides. The data above, taken from a 2010 study by Australian researchersshows that suicides dropped dramatically after the Australian government set up a mandatory gun buyback program that reduced the number of firearms in the country by about one-fifth.

The Australian study found that buying back 3,500 guns per 100,000 people correlated with up to a 50 percent drop in firearm homicides and a 74 percent drop in gun suicides. As Dylan Matthews explained for Vox, the drop in homicides wasn’t statistically significant (in large part because murders in Australia were already so low). But the drop in suicides definitely was — and the results are striking.

Australia is far from alone in these types of results. A study from Israeli researchers found that suicides among Israeli soldiers dropped by 40 percent when the military stopped letting soldiers take their guns home.

14) In states with more guns, more police officers are also killed on duty

Given that states with more guns tend to have more homicides, it isn’t too surprising that, as a 2015 study in the American Journal of Public Health found, states with more guns also have more police die in the line of duty.

Researchers looked at federal data for firearm ownership and homicides of police officers across the US over 15 years. They found that states with more gun ownership had more police killed in homicides: Every 10 percent increase in firearm ownership correlated with 10 additional officers killed in homicides over the 15-year study period.
The findings could help explain why US police officers appear to kill more people than police in other developed countries. For US police officers, the higher rates of guns and gun violence — even against them — in America mean that they not only will encounter more guns and violence, but they can expect to encounter more guns and deadly violence, making them more likely to anticipate and perceive a threat and use deadly force as a result.
This fantastic article (edited/cut down by me) explores and backs up what I said about guns.

I want to be clear where I agree with Pro.

I agree that if gun control is not effective, it may as well not be a policy because only the criminals end up with the guns. I also agree that the US in particular is vulnerable to this flaw as neighboring states enable smuggling to be easier.

The optimal endgame is that gun control is done effectively, to this, Pro has zero rebuttal in my opinion. Gun control is not implausible to be done well, as evidenced by the fact that even inside of US, contrary to what Pro pushed in round 1, stares of laxer gun control have more of every gun-related issue (especially lethal ones).

I am aware that Pro is entitoed to say I just copy-pasted an article but if you read the article vs what I quote, I carefully trimmed the text to specifically consist of referenced studies and specific text relative to my points and rebuttals, most of which I already mentioned in Round 1.

I absolutely will, with my own text, expand on each point in Round 3. 

To summarise, gun control cuts down deaths among criminals, suicidal civilians and police officers alike. It can, when done effectively, lead to general crimes like robberies being 54 times less likely to be lethal.
Round 3
Pro
#5
I will make a thorough debunking of the source that you have given me

I mandate you to read all of my sources so that you may come up with better arguments

The first point I will debunk: "1) America has six times as many firearm homicides as Canada, and nearly 16 times as many as Germany"


US population: 329.5 million
Switzerland population: 8.637 million
Belgium population: 11.56 million
Luxembourg population: 632,275
Canada population: 38.01 million
Ireland population: 5,035,086
Finland population: 5.531 million
Sweden population: 10.35 million
Netherlands population: 17.44 million
Denmark population: 5.831 million
Austria population: 8.917 million
Germany population: 83.24 million
New Zealand population: 5.084 million
Australia population: 25.69 million

America has the largest population so it will have a higher chance of homicides. Also this point is refuted by point 7 in the article.

2) Again, the US has the largest population of people.

3) Some Republican states(which have permissive gun laws) have low gun crime those include the following:

the source has this to say: "As a criminal justice researcher, I study gun purchasing and mass shootings, and it’s clear to me that these events are traumatic for victims, families, communities and the nation as a whole. But despite the despair about their slightly growing frequency, they are actually uncommon incidents that account for just 0.2% of firearm deaths in the U.S. each year."

5) I have already refuted this.

6) this point already refutes itself with the first statistic.

7) This is true, this supports my arguments, i won't refute it, and I will concede.

8) the opposite is true with Utah and all the north wester red states east of the pacific coast in the map of the 3rd point.

9) "9) Still, gun homicides (like all homicides) have declined over the past couple of decades9) Still, gun homicides (like all homicides) have declined over the past couple of decades" This is because of reduced gun control and other factors, it supports my point

10) "Most gun deaths are suicides" suicides are caused by drugs and mental health issues. If we can deal with drugs and mental health issues then suicide rates will plunge so lower than any hole. If we deal with guns then the suicide victims will just find other methods to kill themselves.

11) see 10.

12) see 10.

13) this is in Australia, not the US.

14) then we just increase funding for the police and give them more guns and more armor and more protection

15) Because guns prevent crime

16) Well the most popular policy is popular because mentally ill people do bad things with guns, good guys use guns to hunt food and shoot the bad guys.


Utah: One of the reddest states, it has no mass shootings.
Gun laws: Wikipedia states: "Utah's firearm laws are some of the more permissive in the United States. Utah's firearms laws are intended to protect the second amendment rights of its law-abiding citizens, while at the same time ensuring the safety of the general public. A 2013 study ranked Utah the lowest among all 50 states in the category of gun control legislation." link to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Utah

Idaho: https://kidotalkradio.com/idaho-second-most-gun-friendliest-state/#:~:text=Idaho%20is%20considered%20to%20be,friendly%20to%20the%20Second%20Amendment. The website states: "Idaho is considered to be one of the most conservative states in the country. Recently, a national publication says that Idaho is the second most gun-friendly state in the country."

Montana: Another red state, and Wikipedia states: Montana has some of the most permissive gun laws in the United States. link to wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Montana#Montana_gun_laws

Wyoming: Another red state. Wikipedia says: "Gun laws in Wyoming rank as some of the most permissive in the country." Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Wyoming


4)

also the average age of a school shooter is 17, and to get a rifle or shotgun in America you have to be 18, and for a handgun you have to be 21. So the average school shooter isn't capable of legally buying guns. My source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/971544/number-k-12-school-shootings-us-age-shooter/

sources(You are mandated to read them all):


















Also, that argument of yours was great, but I have refuted it my friend.

Con
#6
Key:

GC - Gun control
F - firearms (such as guns)

When it suits Pro, he looks to UK data from the 90s to back his side yet when I use Australian data regarding suicides reducing rapidly as severe GC took place, Pro dismisses it last round as orrelevant because he decided this debate can only involve US data.

This is beyond accidental bias, it is sheer wilful hypocrisy. There is no way that controlling access to Fs from people in Australia would have such a drastically different result in suicide rates amongst law abiding citizens. Is Pro saying that he can use UK data because somehow the UK culture is so much closer to US than Australian? If anything, crime data would be much more culture-based than means-of-suicide linking to successful acta of suicide.

If we fully explore the source I was quoting from, we will see even more explanation and evidence behind the claim (I truncated it to save characters and keep it short and to-the-point).

12) Guns allow people to kill themselves much more easily
Estelle Caswell/VoxPerhaps the key reason access to guns so strongly contributes to suicides is that guns are much deadlier than alternatives like cutting and poison.
Jill Harkavy-Friedman, vice president of research for the American Foundation for Suicide Preventionpreviously explained that this is why reducing access to guns can be so important to preventing suicides: Just stalling an attempt or making it less likely to result in death makes a huge difference.
“Time is really key to preventing suicide in a suicidal person,” Harkavy-Friedman said. “First, the crisis won’t last, so it will seem less dire and less hopeless with time. Second, it opens the opportunity for someone to help or for the suicidal person to reach out to someone to help. That’s why limiting access to lethal means is so powerful.”
She added, “[I]f we keep the method of suicide away from a person when they consider it, in that moment they will not switch to another method. It doesn’t mean they never will. But in that moment, their thinking is very inflexible and rigid. So it’s not like they say, ‘Oh, this isn’t going to work. I’m going to try something else.’ They generally can’t adjust their thinking, and they don’t switch methods.”

13) Policies that limit access to guns have decreased suicides
Estelle Caswell/VoxWhen countries reduced access to guns, they saw a drop in the number of firearm suicides. The data above, taken from a 2010 study by Australian researchersshows that suicides dropped dramatically after the Australian government set up a mandatory gun buyback program that reduced the number of firearms in the country by about one-fifth.
The Australian study found that buying back 3,500 guns per 100,000 people correlated with up to a 50 percent drop in firearm homicides and a 74 percent drop in gun suicides. As Dylan Matthews explained for Vox, the drop in homicides wasn’t statistically significant (in large part because murders in Australia were already so low). But the drop in suicides definitely was — and the results are striking.
Australia is far from alone in these types of results. A study from Israeli researchers found that suicides among Israeli soldiers dropped by 40 percent when the military stopped letting soldiers take their guns home. The change was most pronounced during the weekends.
This data and research have a clear message: States and countries can significantly reduce the number of suicides by restricting access to guns.

There is absolutely no way that the research and points regarding how fast and simple it is to kill oneself with a F vs all other means of suicide (other than instantly killing poison which is hard to come by) can only apply to Australia and not apply to America. Furthermore, nothing in the resolution or description limited this debate to USA.

The fact is that Pro keeps pointing out some crime rates going up when GC gets introduced, however when specifically focusing on lethal crime and F-related issues, these go down and the longer a place (whether US state or non-US GC'ed nation) has to control the Fs the more definitely and significantly the gun-related crimes reach severely low rates within it.

I will quickly re-quote from my previous Round the sections relating to that.
 
1) America has six times as many firearm homicides as Canada, and nearly 16 times as many as Germany
To which my opponent attributed this to larger population and erroneously mentions this:
Also this point is refuted by point 7 in the article.
However, I didn't even quote point 7 and Pro didn't explain what it was, regardless it doesn't refute it. Instead, it refutes the idea that the issue is America-related as opposed to being specifically due to the availability of guns within America.

7) America is an outlier when it comes to gun deaths, but not overall crime
This point, which you are free to explore by looking at the link pasted here or the Round before, notes that America actually has effective law enforcement. The issue with America is that gun deaths are significantly higher in America (relative to the population) than elsewhere.

the US appears to have more lethal violence — and that’s driven in large part by the prevalence of guns.
“A series of specific comparisons of the death rates from property crime and assault in New York City and London show how enormous differences in death risk can be explained even while general patterns are similar,” Zimring and Hawkins wrote. “A preference for crimes of personal force and the willingness and ability to use guns in robbery make similar levels of property crime 54 times as deadly in New York City as in London.”

This is in many ways intuitive: People of every country get into arguments and fights with friends, family, and peers. But in the US, it’s much more likely that someone will get angry during an argument and be able to pull out a gun and kill someone.

This does not contradict my point at all, showing one of many examples of Pro twisting context and even outright lying about the relationship between certain points.

The first part, which Pro attributes to population, was not correct but the US is not 'the worst' relative to its gun ownership either. The point that was made was that nations with more guns have far more lethality-related crimes. The point specifically (both point 1 and point 7) reiterated that this is nothing to do with American culture, instead the singular aspect of being F-friendly and anti-GC was to blame.

If you explore the second study linked to (which is the core study linked to point 1) you will find many points backing the entire article in fact, not just point 1.

2. Across high-income nations, more guns = more homicide
We analyzed the relationship between homicide and gun availability using data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s.  We found that across developed countries, where guns are more available, there are more homicides.  These results often hold even when the United States is excluded.
Hemenway, David; Miller, Matthew.  Firearm availability and homicide rates across 26 high income countries.  Journal of Trauma.  2000; 49:985-88.
 
3. Across states, more guns = more homicide
Using a validated proxy for firearm ownership, we analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and homicide across 50 states over a ten-year period (1988-1997).
After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of homicide, particularly firearm homicide.
Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David.  Household firearm ownership levels and homicide rates across U.S. regions and states, 1988-1997.  American Journal of Public Health.  2002; 92:1988-1993.
 
4. Across states, more guns = more homicide (2)
Using survey data on rates of household gun ownership, we examined the association between gun availability and homicide across states, 2001-2003.  We found that states with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm homicide and overall homicide.  This relationship held for both genders and all age groups, after accounting for rates of aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, urbanization, alcohol consumption, and resource deprivation (e.g., poverty).  There was no association between gun prevalence and non-firearm homicide.
Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David.  State-level homicide victimization rates in the U.S. in relation to survey measures of household firearm ownership, 2001-2003.  Social Science and Medicine.  2007; 64:656-64.

6. More guns = more homicides of police
This article examines homicide rates of Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs) from 1996 to 2010.  Differences in rates of homicides of LEOs across states are best explained not by differences in crime, but by differences in household gun ownership.  In high gun states, LEOs are 3 times more likely to be murdered than LEOs working in low-gun states.
This article was cited by President Obama in a speech to a police association.  This article will hopefully bring police further into the camp of those pushing for sensible gun laws.
Swedler DI, Simmons MM, Dominici F, Hemenway D.  Firearm prevalence and homicides of law enforcement officers in the United States.  American Journal of Public Health.  2015; 105:2042-48.

The point is that I never said, nor did the article say that US alone had any particular blame. The only unique thing about US is that it has so many firearms vs people. The fact is that countries with less advanced law enforcement have worse crime but US has more lethal crime. 

Pro's gripe is with bans, not just GC and it seems to be repeatedly shown that Pro believes GC is good if it's done correctly.
Round 4
Pro
#7
You: "When it suits Pro, he looks to UK data from the 90s to back his side yet when I use Australian data regarding suicides reducing rapidly as severe GC took place, Pro dismisses it last round as irrelevant because he decided this debate can only involve US data. This is beyond accidental bias, it is sheer willful hypocrisy. There is no way that controlling access to Fs from people in Australia would have such a drastically different result in suicide rates amongst law abiding citizens."

To start, this is a logical fallacy known as a "Tu quoque" or an "appeal to hypocrisy". Link on what Tu quoque is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
I'd rather you attack the argument instead of the man


But anyways I will deal with the data:


"12) Guns allow people to kill themselves much more easily
Estelle Caswell/VoxPerhaps the key reason access to guns so strongly contributes to suicides is that guns are much deadlier than alternatives like cutting and poison. Jill Harkavy-Friedman, vice president of research for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, previously explained that this is why reducing access to guns can be so important to preventing suicides: Just stalling an attempt or making it less likely to result in death makes a huge difference.
“Time is really key to preventing suicide in a suicidal person,” Harkavy-Friedman said. “First, the crisis won’t last, so it will seem less dire and less hopeless with time. Second, it opens the opportunity for someone to help or for the suicidal person to reach out to someone to help. That’s why limiting access to lethal means is so powerful.” She added, “[I]f we keep the method of suicide away from a person when they consider it, in that moment they will not switch to another method. It doesn’t mean they never will. But in that moment, their thinking is very inflexible and rigid. So it’s not like they say, ‘Oh, this isn’t going to work. I’m going to try something else.’ They generally can’t adjust their thinking, and they don’t switch methods.”"


My response: To start, suicides are NOT caused by access to guns. Suicides are caused my mental illness, drug abuse, a stressful environment, or poor living conditions. Also people can commit suicide in other ways such as the following:

* hanging
* drowning
* jumping off heights
* etc

Dealing with mental illnesses can stop more suicides than gun control.

"13) Policies that limit access to guns have decreased suicides
Estelle Caswell/Vox When countries reduced access to guns, they saw a drop in the number of firearm suicides. The data above, taken from a 2010 study by Australian researchers, shows that suicides dropped dramatically after the Australian government set up a mandatory gun buyback program that reduced the number of firearms in the country by about one-fifth.
The Australian study found that buying back 3,500 guns per 100,000 people correlated with up to a 50 percent drop in firearm homicides and a 74 percent drop in gun suicides. As Dylan Matthews explained for Vox, the drop in homicides wasn’t statistically significant (in large part because murders in Australia were already so low). But the drop in suicides definitely was — and the results are striking.
Australia is far from alone in these types of results. A study from Israeli researchers found that suicides among Israeli soldiers dropped by 40 percent when the military stopped letting soldiers take their guns home. The change was most pronounced during the weekends.
This data and research have a clear message: States and countries can significantly reduce the number of suicides by restricting access to guns."

The graph shows that suicides were already going down before Australia started the gun buyback program. This is just a case of correlation, not causation.


point 7 is 7)
"7) Has a graph that shows that Australia(which has harsher gun laws) has more violent crime than America.
the US appears to have more lethal violence — and that’s driven in large part by the prevalence of guns.
“A series of specific comparisons of the death rates from property crime and assault in New York City and London show how enormous differences in death risk can be explained even while general patterns are similar,” Zimring and Hawkins wrote. “A preference for crimes of personal force and the willingness and ability to use guns in robbery make similar levels of property crime 54 times as deadly in New York City as in London.” This is in many ways intuitive: People of every country get into arguments and fights with friends, family, and peers. But in the US, it’s much more likely that someone will get angry during an argument and be able to pull out a gun and kill someone."

New York is a state that is politically liberal, which means that it supports gun control. According to the map from https://matadornetwork.com/read/mapped-gun-ownership-us/ New York has a low gun ownership rate. Another map from https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/gun-owners-study-one-in-three/ shows that New York has a low gun ownership rate again. And New York has higher crime rate than gun permissive red states like Utah or Idaho.


"2. Across high-income nations, more guns = more homicide
We analyzed the relationship between homicide and gun availability using data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s.  We found that across developed countries, where guns are more available, there are more homicides.  These results often hold even when the United States is excluded.
Hemenway, David; Miller, Matthew.  Firearm availability and homicide rates across 26 high income countries.  Journal of Trauma." To start, America has a higher population than any other states on the graph. Second, this graph does not show that this correlates to gun violence so it's just begging the question.

"3. Across states, more guns = more homicide
Using a validated proxy for firearm ownership, we analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and homicide across 50 states over a ten-year period (1988-1997).
After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of homicide, particularly firearm homicide.
Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David.  Household firearm ownership levels and homicide rates across U.S. regions and states, 1988-1997.  American Journal of Public Health. " Wyoming has a high gun ownership rate(according to the map here https://matadornetwork.com/read/mapped-gun-ownership-us/ and the map here https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/gun-owners-study-one-in-three/), and yet on this map Wyoming and Idaho had no mass shootings since Sandy Hook.

4." Across states, more guns = more homicide (2)
Using survey data on rates of household gun ownership, we examined the association between gun availability and homicide across states, 2001-2003.  We found that states with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm homicide and overall homicide.  This relationship held for both genders and all age groups, after accounting for rates of aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, urbanization, alcohol consumption, and resource deprivation (e.g., poverty).  There was no association between gun prevalence and non-firearm homicide.
Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David.  State-level homicide victimization rates in the U.S. in relation to survey measures of household firearm ownership, 2001-2003.  Social Science and Medicine.  If you ignore Utah and Wyoming.


6. "More guns = more homicides of police
This article examines homicide rates of Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs) from 1996 to 2010.  Differences in rates of homicides of LEOs across states are best explained not by differences in crime, but by differences in household gun ownership.  In high gun states, LEOs are 3 times more likely to be murdered than LEOs working in low-gun states.
This article was cited by President Obama in a speech to a police association.  This article will hopefully bring police further into the camp of those pushing for sensible gun laws.
Firearm prevalence and homicides of law enforcement officers in the United States.  American Journal of Public Health. " According to https://www.vox.com/a/police-shootings-ferguson-map most of the gun owning states(like Utah and Wyoming) have less police deaths than the rest of the nation, police deaths are extremely concentrated among the states like New York(Which have tight gun control.


The only way to have good gun control is to make very permissive. Excessive gun control is bad, what we need is crime control/law enforcement.










Con
#8
My opponent is bringing up new points in the literal last Round, which really is poor form.

I have said what needs to be said in previous Rounds. 

Gun Control isn't bad but poorly executed gun control can be insufficient to be called good.