I'm writing a paper for English class on a controversial topic of my choice. I want to do mine on the gun debate. This thread will probably die, but please debate your thoughts here.

almost everyone outside America agrees that guns should be pretty limited. Even most Americans agree.

And most people can't even name five guns. Also,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

not saying that's an argument just saying that it's going to be pretty one-sided

I'm not saying not any argument's weak, I'm saying it's one-sided.

I think shotguns/rifles and unconcealed long guns should be available to adults w/o restrictions

Handguns and machine guns should be licensed w/ a background check

A mass proletarian army of guerrilla citizens with guns is only a problem if class warfare is allowed to happen. Under absolute monarchy the hierarchy would be so ingrained culturally and morally well-respected that the masses would never revolt.

Even so an army of citizens with guns is no match for an actual sophisticated military with a vast supply of cruise missiles and tanks.

An armed population would excel at killing terrorists and illegal immigrants trying to enter the country. If a crazy decides to start shooting in public he can be shot down by other people.

I had a debate monologue for English class with a similar argument. I did Gun Liberty side:

I bet you are doing a 5-paragraph + counter format guessing your age, so here is what I would do:

1. Introductory Paragraph, mention emotions - Hitler/Stalin.
2. 1st Body Paragraph, talk about not reducing violence.
3. 2nd Body Paragraph, talk about mental health.
4. 3rd Body Paragraph, talk about civil liberties.
5. Counter-Argument, use statistics about nations with lots of guns (Iceland, Switzerland).
6. Closing Paragraph, 1776 :D

Obviously I don't have the time to write your essay, but here is a big big outline that took like 10 minutes:

Btw, I debate enough intelligent people, if you are trying to tell me why I'm wrong, I don't care.

People will resort to other means of violence without guns, and taking away guns does not take away the immense mentality of carelessness violence in America (the country I'm assuming this is about for you). Look at other countries like Switzerland and Iceland, incredibly low gun homicide rates, but still:

United States 112.6 Guns per 100 Capita
3.43 Gun Homicides per 100,000 Capita

Switzerland 45.7 Guns per 100 Capita
0.23 Gun Homicides per 100,000 Capita

Iceland 30.3 Guns per 100 Capita
0.00 Gun Homicides per 100,000 Capita

These three points make it seem as less guns means less murders, but take for example:

Honduras 6.2 Guns per 100 Capita (mostly gangs, hmm)
66.64 Gun Homicides per 100,000 Capita

Obviously there are many outliers here, but overall this should be used as a counter-point, because it proves absolutely nothing, which is the point if it is a counter-argument, that it is worthless. Reducing guns doesn't reduce crime.

Civil Liberties:

If you are trying to argue that people with mental health issues shouldn't get guns, go you. You can go down the slippery slope, first mentally ill, then previous criminals, then dangerous individuals decided by the NSA, then basically everyone. It is hard to go backwards in legislation.

If mentally ill people are disarmed, who decides when they are well? If you become mentally stable, are you still deprived of a gun? Our government is notorious for being inefficient, and it is hard to say that such regulations would even be valid, as criminals by definition do not follow laws and won't follow gun laws.

Gun Control Hall of Fame:

"To conquer a nation, first disarm it's citizens"
- Adolf Hitler, killed 11+ million in the holocaust, 6+ million of which were Jewish.

"We don't let them have ideas, why would we let them have guns?"
- Josef Stalin, killed 20+ million through concentration camps and mass starvation.

For mental health I would just find examples of the mentally ill people who shoot up schools and stuff, I got tired and lazy.

Reading the back and forth between Castle Bravo and Tabby was interesting. I'm not an authoritarian so the issue doesn't conflict with me. I do agree with Tabby in saying that a tyrannical government could not stand with a population that is sufficiently armed, which is why all dictators and kings have first disarmed their population.

Edited 1/17/2017 04:36:07

Also, thanks Benjamin! This will be useful! I'm 17 and not American, but Canadian btw!

Edited 1/17/2017 03:59:34

Lol I guess Ben's notes won't help if you're 17 unless you're in a special ed program or something

The Canadian school system is entirely a special ed program. In other words, our so-called education is worthless in the real world.

If that comforts you, sure.

My opinions on gun control change completely once I step outside of the US.

I'm not sure about Canada, but guns have been in US arms since its birth; it was born out of guns, as well. Guns expanded our country, kept it from falling apart, gave protection in the badlands and less governed places, and gave food for our families.

Guns are so ingrained in US culture and society that it would be a terrible idea to limit them much at all. They are everywhere, and everyone has access to them if they want one enough. Government has them, good, law abiding citizens have them, and bad naughty criminals have them. To limit them too far would only disservice the law abiding citizens, as the government, and the bad naughty criminals would still have access to them in full.

It's not like that in other countries, though. And in a lot of those countries, there is no issue on this, because there are not all too many guns in circulation, legal or illegal.

On a side note I think gun freaks get a bad rap. The group who seem to praise guns more than Jesus are among the least likely to commit a crime with guns, but they are always the targets of scrutiny by those who want Europe-like gun control.

the real problem with not restricting guns isnt homicides, statistics show that homicide rates dont fall much (or at all) in many countrys after gun control is instituted. the real problem with it are suicides and accidents. If people are feeling depressed the easiest way to kill yourself is a gun, if those people dont have a gun, they might fail to kill themselves, this reduces the suicide rate. And it is incredibly difficult to aciddentaly kill someone, unless you have a gun.

These aren't particularly great responses, but I found a Quora question (https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Americans-need-to-own-guns-Even-when-the-law-enforcement-agencies-are-very-efficient) that I think might help the non-Americans here understand the American perspective on gun rights. If you grow up in a society other than the United States of America, you might not understand this country's values and viewpoints perfectly so there's some stuff that people from other countries miss when they try to figure out what rights we should and shouldn't get.

Gun rights are fundamentally about keeping our country's democratic systems in balance- by giving the people/individuals some mechanisms to defend themselves against abuse and the ability to defend themselves in basic situations without having to become dependent on the government. At its core, our Constitution is about a carefully-crafted balance between lots of competing interests (the federal government, state governments, local governments, people, political coalitions, corporate interests, industries, foreign powers, etc.) built to preserve the rights of the American people and to maintain a functional but fundamentally rights-driven and liberal (in the classical sense- i.e., maintaining liberty) government. There are some places where you have a trade-off between a government that's able to provide a high quality-of-life and a government that's able to maintain a basic level of freedom for a long period of time- and that trade-off factored greatly into the crafting of America's government.

Now, obviously, that Constitution is not a be-all-end-all here since even the people who wrote it disagreed vehemently on what it meant and would've been divided on the Second Amendment too. But a lot of people's assumptions about guns- like, "Why do you need them in the first place?"- ignore certain ways of thinking that you'll find in American culture. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, it's worth trying to understand what these people think and why they think it.

Edited 1/17/2017 06:20:58

It's a pretty similar use to what the military is supposed to be used for in Turkey, to keep the government in check. Except in Turkey it failed recently and in the US has been used sparingly.

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Edited 1/17/2017 09:09:19

Keep criminals and insane ppl from having guns. Let everyone else have anything they want. No restrictions.

he real problem with not restricting guns isnt homicides, statistics show that homicide rates dont fall much (or at all) in many countrys after gun control is instituted. the real problem with it are suicides and accidents. If people are feeling depressed the easiest way to kill yourself is a gun, if those people dont have a gun, they might fail to kill themselves, this reduces the suicide rate. And it is incredibly difficult to aciddentaly kill someone, unless you have a gun.

I'd just like to point out that this theory is pretty much completely bogus. In reality there is little or no correlation between suicide rate and gun ownership, and in many cases there seems to be somewhat of an anticorrelation with places like japan, russia, south korea, and india having among the highest suicide rates:

http://gamapserver.who.int/mapLibrary/Files/Maps/Global_AS_suicide_rates_bothsexes_2012.png?ua=1