Round 1
Pro: With the recent school shooting in Florida, the demands for stricter gun control have increased. They say that our current laws are not enough, and they are right. The opposition claims that stricter gun control laws are erasing the Second Amendment, but they don’t seem to realize that when the Second Amendment was created, guns were very limited in what they could do and how quickly they could do it. The possibility of mass shootings was much less likely. In addition, having the right to have a weapon is not the same as having the right to have any weapon. Even if new legislation focused solely on prohibiting things like high-capacity magazines and assault rifles, it would drastically reduce the number of gun deaths without erasing the Second Amendment. Stricter background checks can also help to reduce gun violence by making certain that those with violent or criminal tendencies have a harder time gaining access to weapons.
Con: It is indeed true that guns have changed quite a bit since the bill of rights was written, giving us the ever-contested second amendment. In the late eighteenth century even a professional soldier couldn’t manage to shoot so much as a half dozen shots in a minute from the same weapon—exponentially slower than the weapons of today. The thing is, the bill of rights wasn’t only written so that people could protect their homes from other individuals, but to protect their country from itself if necessary. Keep in mind that the bill of rights was written in the context of a country that had very recently overthrown a government that it saw as tyrannical and oppressive. The logical extension of that is that the Second Amendment is intended to protect the private ownership of guns on par with those in the hands of our military in case it should need to be overthrown.
Round 2
Pro: The idea that we shouldn’t restrict more powerful weapons so that we have a defense against any potential tyranny by the government has a couple of issues to it. First, it indicates that violence is the first and best response for the protection of lives or freedom. Yes, fighting to defend can be necessary, but it should never be our first thought. Second, it implies that we are passive until provoked to violence by necessity. We should, instead, be proactive in how we deal with political and social issues, but by using words, diplomacy and peaceful actions to foster understanding and agreement. Violence only leads to binary opposition and hard feelings that can take a very long time to get over. If we chose to wait until issues force our hand and then react with violence, we often find ourselves missing opportunities for growth in favor of making a point through destruction.
Con: I’m not saying that a document written over two hundred years ago should mean that absolutely anyone should be able to pack any kind of firepower — nobody worth listening to is saying that. Tragedies like the recent Florida shooting and that in Nevada a few months ago should certainly encourage us to restrict the kinds of people that should have access to certain kinds of weapon. Just as certain other rights , such as the right to vote or hold public office, are restricted for people who are deemed incapable of safely or responsibly using them, we should work, as a country, to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of youths, those convicted of even minor offenses, and the mentally impaired or unstable. There are reasons both to protect and to restrict the availability of different classes of weapons.
Con side debated by Jon Jaehnig
