Instigator / Con
49
1596
rating
42
debates
63.1%
won
Topic
#758

All guns should be banned

Status
Finished

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

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
21
6
Better sources
14
4
Better legibility
7
7
Better conduct
7
1

After 7 votes and with 31 points ahead, the winner is...

Alec
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
4
Time for argument
Two days
Max argument characters
5,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Pro
18
1450
rating
10
debates
30.0%
won
Description

Rules of the debate:
1: The BoP is shared
2: I waive the 1st round and my opponent waives the last round. Violation is a loss of conduct point.

Round 1
Con
#1
Round waived because of debate rules.
Pro
#2
Banning all guns sounds like an extreme position but I would postulate that our societies acceptance of guns for personal ownership and warfare is the real extreme position. Banning all guns is the most reasonable solution to gun violence because contrary to many gun-control advocates, it isn't possible for a society to determine which people can be trusted with guns. This argument comes down to a moral decision, is the right to bear arms more important than the right to life? The answer is No.

Round 2
Con
#3
Arguments:

1) Guns provide protection against criminals and the potential of a tyrannical government.  This is the 21st century, so a lot of arguments can be covered with memes.  Below are 2 memes that I think you should see for yourself:


2) Guns also reduce homicide.  Whenever an area bans guns, law abiding citizens turn in their guns but criminals still hang on to their guns.  Can you imagine what happens if a criminal is armed and a law abiding citizen(LAC) isn't?  The LAC gets robbed or shot or both.  If they try to call the police, they are shot. DC placed huge restrictions on guns in 1976 and their homicide rate stayed constant at best and skyrocketed at worse (1).  This means that gun control does nothing to stop homicide and may even increase homicide rates.  When they repealed their tough gun laws, the homicide rate fell.

Jamaica basically banned all guns and their already high homicide rate skyrocketed.

Jamaica’s homicide rate in 1973, before the gun ban, was 11.5 per 100 000. In 1977, three years after the ban was enacted, murder rates nearly doubled to 19.5. By 1980 the homicide rate had nearly quadrupled to 41.7, and peaked at 59.0 per 100 000 people in 2007. In summary, after having banned civilian ownership of guns, Jamaica experienced a near-fourfold increase in its homicide rate within a period of only 6 years. And the homicide rate has remained exorbitantly high ever since.


3) Guns are also useful in hunting, which can prevent some families from starving.

4) Guns reduce rape.  They not only protect your home from criminals and your freedom from a tyrannical government, they also protect your bodily autonomy by preventing rape.  Another meme below!  The women on the right won't get raped with her pistol to protect her.  The women on the left wishes she could do the same.



Rebuttals:
Banning all guns is the most reasonable solution to gun violence because contrary to many gun-control advocates, it isn't possible for a society to determine which people can be trusted with guns.
If the definition of "getting it right" is the person doesn't murder anyone with the gun, and vice versa, the vast majority of the time, the NRA or whoever sells the gun gets it right because the vast majority of guns will never be used in a mass shooting or with human to human gun violence in general.

This argument comes down to a moral decision, is the right to bear arms more important than the right to life? The answer is No.
The decision at least to the left and to a lesser extent the right, is how best to reduce gun violence?  This is why most people on the American left don't want to ban all guns, they merely want to ban AK 47 guns and similar guns.  Even the liberals in America, even AOC recognizes the usefulness of some guns, otherwise she would want to ban all guns.  Instead, she merely wants to ban AK47s or as she puts it, "Assault weapons".  She is the most left leaning American person that I know, even more left then Bernie Sanders.  Both the right and the left don't want to ban all guns and most societies that I know of that has banned all guns has experienced their homicide rate skyrocketing.  If your going to mention the UK, then the graph below shows that when they placed severe restrictions on them, their homicide rate spiked soon after the ban.  It went down after due to something else, but solely because of the gun ban, the homicide rate spiked.  Here is a graph below:



Back to you Pro.
Pro
#4
There are non-lethal forms of self defense that can be used against criminals and guns are not a required to resist a tyrannical government, especially one without guns. When I say all guns should be banned I am working with the assumption that all guns are confiscated from everyone, including criminals. There are effective ways of confiscating all guns, and wile your sources say it's ineffective in the short term there is no reason to believe that violence from guns won't be eliminated when all guns are removed. Guns are not necessary for hunting so that is not a good reason not to ban them.

Round 3
Con
#5
There are non-lethal forms of self defense that can be used against criminals and guns are not a required to resist a tyrannical government
Like what?  A taser won't work if you miss and most guns shots in self defense are misses, it barely provides protection.  A whistle won't work and if you try to whistle, the criminal would shoot you anyways so you stop.  Karate doesn't work if your out of arm's reach of a criminal.  A gun works for longer distances.  Besides, most Americans don't know karate so it won't provide adequate protection for them.

When I say all guns should be banned I am working with the assumption that all guns are confiscated from everyone, including criminals.
Criminals will always get guns if they want them, whether by legal or illegal means.  Law abiding citizens will only get guns through legal ways.

There are effective ways of confiscating all guns
When the government has tried to do that, the criminals hide their guns more effectively and then they rape and kill unarmed people who can't defend themselves.

there is no reason to believe that violence from guns won't be eliminated when all guns are removed.
This is a concession.

Guns are not necessary for hunting so that is not a good reason not to ban them.
To the best of my knowledge, a hunting rifle is the most accurate device used for hunting.

I would like to list the arguments my opponent dropped:

Argument 2: Guns reduce homicide.
Argument 4: Guns reduce rape.

Unless he picks them up by the end of the 3rd round, these are dropped points that voters should consider when voting.

Back to you Pro.
Pro
#6
Forfeited
Round 4
Con
#7
All big boy arguments extended.
Pro
#8
Forfeited