I affirm the resolution resolved: In the United States, the private ownership of handguns

ought to be banned

Definitions
1- Private ownership defined as is Collins Dictionary [http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/privateownership] the fact of being owned by a private individual or organization, rather than by the
state or a public body
2- US code defines handguns Legal Information Institute [Legal Information Institute, non-for-profit group that publishes
law online. 18 U.S. Code 921 Definitions https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/921]
The term handgun means

(A) a firearm which has a short stock and is designed to be held and fired by the use of a
single hand; and
(B) any combination of parts from which a [such a] firearm described in subparagraph
(A) can be assembled.
3- Ought implies a moral obligation
4- ban
[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ban]

V: Morality, as prescribed by the resolution

The standard is maximizing utility
Maximizing protection of life is the only way to respect the equal worth of persons. Rakowski,
On one side, it presses toward the consequentialist view that individuals' status as moral equals requires that
the number of people kept alive be maximized. Only in this way, the thought runs, can we give
due weight to the fundamental equality of persons; to allow more deaths when we can
ensure fewer is to treat some people as less valuable than others. Further, killing some to save others, or
letting some die for that purpose, does not entail that those who are killed or left to their fate are being used merely as means to the
well-being of others, as would be true if they were slain or left to drown merely to please people who would live anyway. They do, of
course, in some cases serve as means. But they do not act merely as means. Those who die are no less ends than those who live. It is
because they are also no more ends than others whose lives are in the balance that an impartial
decision-maker must choose to save the more numerous group, even if she must kill to do so.

Happiness is the ultimate end to every action. Kay,

It results from the preceding considerations, that there is in reality nothing desired except happiness. Whatever is
desired otherwise than as a means to some end beyond itself, and ultimately to happiness, is desired as itself a part of happiness, and
is not desired for itself until it has become so. Those who desire virtue for its own sake, desire it either

because the consciousness of it is a pleasure, or because the consciousness of being without it

is a pain, or for both reasons united; as in truth the pleasure and pain seldom exist separately, but almost always together, the same
person feeling pleasure in the degree of virtue attained, and pain in not having attained more. If one of these gave him no pleasure, and
the other no pain, he would not love or desire virtue, or would desire it only for the other benefits which it might produce to himself or
to persons whom he cared for. We have now, then, an answer to the question, of what sort of proof the principle of utility is

susceptible. If the opinion which I have now stated is psychologically true- if human nature is so constituted as to
desire nothing which is not either a part of happiness or a means of happiness, we can have no
other proof, and we require no other, that these are the only things desirable. If so, happiness is the
sole end of human action, and the promotion of it the test by which to judge of all human
conduct; from whence it necessarily follows that it must be the criterion of morality, since a part is
included in the whole.
Everything devolves into Util no matter what. My standard will always supersede theirs because in the end, they will always be trying
to maximize happiness,

Contention One: Guns perpetuated crime and violence

A: The USFG is disproportionately affected by handguns

VPC 99 "Handgun Ban Background," Violence Policy Center, 1999, http://www.vpc.org/fact_sht/hgbanfs.htm AZ
Handgun Ban Backgrounder America's gun problem is a handgun problem. Handguns exact an inordinate toll on American lives. The

vast majority of gun death and injury in homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings is
carried out with easily concealable pistols and revolvers. The public health model as well as the traditional
approaches employed in protecting consumer health and safety lead to one inevitable conclusion: handguns should be banned.
Firearms There are an estimated 192 million firearms in civilian hands.1 Yet, fewer and fewer Americans own more and more guns.
Surprisingly, only 25 percent of adults own a firearm. Of these, three out of four own more than one gun.2 About 10 percent of the
adult population owns 77 percent of the total stock of firearms .3 Handguns There are about 65 million handguns in

the United States. Handguns make up 34 percent of all types of firearms.4 Of all firearmrelated crime, 86 percent involved handguns.5 Only one in six Americans own handguns.6 Unlike
manufacturers of other consumer products, the industry that makes handguns is
unregulated for health and safety. Overall Firearm-Related Deaths Since 1962, more than one million Americans have
died in firearm homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings. Handguns were used in more than 650,000 of these fatal shootings.7
In 1997the most recent year availablethere were 89 firearm deaths per day, or a firearm death every 16 minutes.8 In homes
with guns, a member of the household is almost three times as likely to be the victim of a homicide compared to gun-free homes.9
Handguns and Homicide On the average, if someone gets shot and killed, four out of five times it will be
with a handgun. In 1997, for example, handguns were used in 79.4 percent of all firearm homicides.10 From 1990 to 1997,
handguns were used in a majority (55.6 percent) of all homicides; that is, they were used in murder more than all other weapons
combined.11 From 1990 to 1997, there were 293,781 firearm deaths homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings.12 From 1990
to 1997 in the United States there were more than 160,000 homicides 110,000 firearm homicides 89,000 handgun homicides13
Handgun homicides hit record highs in the early 1990s, peaking in 1993. That year there were 13,258 such killingsout of a total of
16,120 firearm homicides.14 As part of an overall drop in crime, in 1997 handgun homicides fell to 8,503.15 Suicide The largest
category of firearms fatality is suicide, not homicide. In 1997, 54 percent of all gun deaths were suicides, and 42 percent were
homicides.16 About six out of 10 suicides are committed with firearms.17 For firearm suicides, it is estimated that handguns are used
twice as often (69 percent) as rifles and shotguns.18 For all suicides, it is estimated that more than four out of 10 were committed with
handguns.19 From 1990 to 1997 there were more than 147,000 suicides committed with a firearm an estimated 90,000 involved a
handgun20 People living in a household with a gun are almost five times more likely to die by suicide than people living in a gun-free
home.21 Self Defense For every time a gun in the home is used in a self-defense homicide, a gun

will be used in 1.3 unintentional deaths 4.6 criminal homicides 37 suicides22 In 1997 there
were 15,690 homicides. Of these, 8,503 were committed with handguns. Among handgun
homicides, only 193 (2.3 percent) were classified as justifiable homicides by civilians.23 For
every time in 1997 that a civilian used a handgun to kill in self-defense, 43 people lost their
lives in handgun homicides alone.24

B: Domestic Violence
Current restrictions leave too many loopholes we need a blanket restriction
Easy accessibility of guns are at the core of domestic violence
Zeoli et al 13
April M. Zeoli - PhD, MPH, is an assistant professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University; Shannon
Frattaroli - PhD, MPH, is an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Evidence for Optimism
Policies to Limit Batterers Access to Guns January 28, 2013IG 12/5/15

In 2010, at least 1,082 women and 267 men were killed by their intimate partners. Fifty-four
percent of these victims were killed with guns (United States Department of Justice 2012). For at least the past
twenty-five years, more intimate partner homicides (IPHs) have been committed with guns than
with all other weapons combined (Fox and Zawitz 2009). Furthermore, women are more likely to be
killed by an intimate partner than by any other offender group (Fox and Zawitz 2009; Moracco, Runyan,
and Butts 1998). The evidence is clear: when a woman is killed, it is most likely to be at the hands
of an intimate partner with a gun.
In this essay, we focus on policies to limit batterers access to guns, the evidence that supports these policies, and evidence for
improvement in their implementation and expansion. We begin with an overview of the evidence about gun usage in domestic
violence and how batterers become known to the justice system. Second, we discuss existing legislation to remove guns from
batterers. We then present promising evidence about policies to limit batterers access to guns and their relationship to IPH, and we
discuss implementation and enforcement of those laws. We conclude with federal gun policy recommendations to prevent IPH.

Possession of guns makes intimate partners prone to domestic violence Campbell et al 03

Jacquelyn C. Campbell - Professor at John Hopkins School of Nursing and National Program Director, Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholars; Daniel Webster - Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, Deputy Director
for Research, Johns Hopkins Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence, Professor of Health Policy and Management; et al: Risk
Factors for Femicide in Abusive Relationships: Results From a Multisite Case Control Study American Journal of Public Health.
2003;93(7):1089-1097.IG 12/ 5/15

iterative model-building strategy also allowed us to observe whether the effects of more
proximate risk factors mediate the effects of more distal factors in a manner consistent with
theory. For example, the 8-fold increase in intimate partner femicide risk associated with
abusers access to firearms attenuated to a 5-fold increase when characteristics of the abuse
were considered, including previous threats with a weapon on the part of the abuser. This
suggests that abusers who possess guns tend to inflict the most severe abuse.
Our

However, consistent with other research,3,23,15,24,25 gun availability still had substantial independent effects that increased
homicide risks. As expected, these effects were due to gun-owning abusers much greater likelihood of using a gun in the worst
incident of abuse, in some cases, the actual femicide. The substantial increase in lethality associated with using a firearm was
consistent with the findings of other research assessing weapon lethality. A victims access to a gun could plausibly reduce her risk of
being killed, at least if she does not live with the abuser. A small percentage (5) of both case and control women lived apart from the
abuser and owned a gun, however, and there was no clear evidence of protective effects.

By battered women against an intimate partner.

Battered women were substantially less likely to use a weapon against an intimate partner
than to have it used against them (see the second column of Table 1). Words were the most common weapon used
against a partner, followed by hands or fists, feet, and household objects. Few of the women had used a motor vehicle or a firearm
against an intimate partner.

By battered women in self-defense.

Although few women had used objects as weapons to harm an intimate partner, it was common for them to have used objects in selfdefense (see the third column of Table 1). The use of words, hands or fists, and feet was common. A substantial minority had used a
door or wall, household object, or motor vehicle in self-defense.

Few of the respondents reported having used a gun in self-defense. There was some overlap between
using a gun in self-defense and using a gun in aggression. Of the 15 women who had used a firearm in self-defense, 5 had also used a
firearm aggressively against a partner. Of the 6 who had used a gun aggressively against a partner, 5 also had used the gun in selfdefense.
Firearms in Most Recent Relationship
Firearm ownership by the partner.

Two fifths (39.1) of the respondents reported that their most recent partner owned a gun
during the time of the relationship. (Few 3.8 said that they did not know whether their
partner owned a gun.) Among the 163 respondents whose partner owned a firearm, 53.4
reported that he obtained a firearm during the time of the relationship. Most respondents
(66.9) reported that the partners having a gun made them feel less safe; 11.7 reported
feeling more safe, and 8.0 reported feeling safer at first but less safe later. One third (35.0) of
the partners who had a gun had more than 1.
Firearm presence in the home.
About one third (36.7) of respondents reported that they had a gun in their home at some
point during the time of the relationship with their most recent partner. Most reported that
having a gun in the home made them feel less safe (79.2), but some said that they felt safer
(11.7) or safer at first but less safe later (5.8).
As shown in Table 2, only 2 of the measured respondent characteristics were associated with having a gun in the home. The odds of
having a firearm in the home was higher for women with a college education than for those with a high school education (adjusted
odds ratio = 2.16, P .006) and for US-born women than for immigrant women (adjusted odds ratio = 1.84, P .03). Adding the number
of weapons used against the woman improved the fit of the model, and for every additional weapon ever used against the woman, the
odds of having a gun in the home increased by 1.38.

Handguns were more common than long guns. Among the 153 households containing a
firearm, 54.3 had handguns only, 12.4 had long guns only, and 30.7 had both handguns and long
guns. A few (4) respondents reported that they did not know what kind of gun was in the home.
Domestic violence is detrimental to society
CDC 15
Center for Disease Control: Intimate Partner Violence: Consequences Last updated March 3,
2015http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/intimatepartnerviolence /consequences.htmlIG
12/7/15
Costs of intimate partner violence (IPV) against women alone in 1995 exceeded an estimated $5.8
billion. These costs included nearly $4.1 billion in the direct costs of medical and mental
health care and nearly $1.8 billion in the indirect costs of lost productivity.1 This is generally
considered an underestimate because the costs associated with the criminal justice system were not included.

IPV costs exceeded $8.3 billion, which included $460 million for rape,
$6.2 billion for physical assault, $461 million for stalking, and $1.2 billion in the value of lost
lives.2
When updated to 2003 dollars,

The increased annual health care costs for victims of IPV can persist as much as 15 years
after the cessation of abuse.3

Victims of severe IPV lose nearly 8 million days of paid work-the equivalent of more than
32,000 full-time jobs-and almost 5.6 million days of household productivity each year.1
Women who experience severe aggression by men (e.g., not being allowed to go to work or school, or having
their lives or their children's lives threatened) are more likely to have been unemployed in the past, have health problems, and be
receiving public assistance.4

Consequences
Approximately 27.3 of women and 11.5 of men in the U.S. have experienced contact sexual
violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner and reported at least one
measured impact related to these or other forms of violence in that relationship.5 In
general, victims of repeated violence over time experience more serious consequences than
victims of one-time incidents.6 The following list describes some, but not all, of the
consequences of IPV.
Physical
Nearly 1 in 4 women (22.3) and 1 in 7 men (14.0) aged 18 and older in the United States have been the victim of severe physical
violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Nearly, 14 of women (13.4) and 3.54 of men have been injured as a result of IPV that
included contact sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime (Breiding et al., 2014).5 In
2010, 241 males and 1095 females were murdered by an intimate partner.7
Apart from deaths and injuries, physical violence by an intimate partner is associated with a number of adverse health outcomes.8,9
Several health conditions associated with intimate partner violence may be a direct result of the physical violence (for example,
bruises, knife wounds, broken bones, traumatic brain injury, back or pelvic pain, headaches). Other conditions are the result of the
impact of intimate partner violence on the cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, endocrine and immune systems through chronic stress or
other mechanisms.8,10,11

Domestic violence is used by men to reinstate a patriarchal system

Tracy 07
Steven Tracy - professor of theology and ethics at Phoenix Seminary: PATRIARCHY AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE:
CHALLENGING COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS JETS September 2007; http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/50/503/JETS_50-3_573-594_Tracy.pdfIG12/15/15

So for many abusive men, in order to maintain their fragile sense of masculinity, they use
physical force to keep their wives in their proper place and to squelch all threats to their
limited male potency. This dynamic of insecure, powerless men using force to control their
wives helps to ex- plain why assault and homicide rates are highest when a woman separates
or threatens to separate from an abusive husband or boyfriend.53 In other words, abusive men must be
in control, and threats to their control of the relationship must be dealt with by force if necessary. Physical abusers also tend to employ
many other forms of control (verbal threats, control of the finances, control of her relationships, etc.) to dominate and subjugate their
wives.54 So while patriarchy is not the sole explanation for violence against women, we would expect that male headship would be
distorted by insecure, unhealthy men to justify their domination and abuse of women. Furthermore, we would expect that patriarchal
views which define the male role primarily in terms of power and control would be most likely to contribute to domestic violence.

Patriarchal gender relations are the root cause of war

Cockburn 10
Cynthia, visiting prof in the Dept of Sociology at the City University London and honorary prof at the Center for the Study of Women
and Gender at U Warwick, "Gender Relations as Causal in Militarization and War" International Feminist Journal of Politics 12.2 Jun
By contrast, patriarchal gender relations as a cause of war , I would suggest, must often fall in the 'root cause' or
'favourable conditions' category, and here we have to pay attention to culture. With the exception of the abduction of the mythical
Helen of Troy (and the spurious attempt of George W. and Laura Bush to portray the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 as a war to save

wars are not fought 'for' gender issues in the way they are
sometimes fought 'for' oil resources, or 'for' national autonomy. Instead, they foster
militarism and militarization. They make war thinkable. They make peace difficult to
sustain. As noted above, women close to militarization and war are observant of cultures,
cultures as they manifest themselves in societies before, in and after armed conflicts. If we think
Afghan women from repression by the Taliban)

of the war system as having a cyclical or spiralling life, as a continuum over time, proceeding from the discourse of militarist
ideology, through material investment in militarization, aggressive policy-making, outbreaks of war, short firefights, prolonged
stalemates, ceasefires, demobilization, periods of provisional peace, anxieties about security, rearmament and so on, and if we

look closely at the social relations in which individuals and groups enact these various steps,
that is where it is possible to see gender relations at work, pushing the wheel around. The above
account of a feminist standpoint, generating an understanding of war that contradicts the hegemonic view, is derived first and foremost
from my empirical research among women's antiwar organizations and networks. But, closely involved with that movement, there is a
world of feminist scholars (men as well as women) who have striven over the past three decades to articulate in a growing library of
written work in the understandings arising among women war survivors and activists. Many collected editions bring together research
and reporting from a range of different countries and periods (for instance, Cooke and Woollacott 1993; Lorentzen and Turpin 1998;
Moser and Clark 2001; Giles and Hyndman 2004). Research-based monographs show the influence of gender relations at points along
the continuum of militarization and war. Robert Dean (201), for instance, in his study of the Kennedy

administration taking the USA to war in Vietnam, shows masculinism at work in

preparation for war. Susan Jeffords (1989) in The Remasculinization of America, shows,
through an analysis of films and novels, national efforts to salvage masculine pride after
such a defeat. Many firsthand accounts show in painful detail how, in military training,
patriarchal masculinity lends itself to exploitation for war-fighting, and how violence is
eroticized in masculine fantasy (Theweleit 1987). Together such studies articulate the
feminist perception that patriarchal gender relations are among the 'root causes' of
militarism and war.
C: Soft power negatively affected
Gun violence destroys US soft power
Freedland 13

Jonathan Freedland - the Guardian's executive editor: Washington DC shootings: America's gun disease diminishes its soft power
The Guardian 9/17/13; http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/17/washington-dc-shootings-america-gun-diseaseIG
12/15/15\

America's gun sickness which has turned massacres of this

kind into a fairly regular, rather than exceptionally rare occurrence endangers the US not
solely because it can lead military personnel to lose their lives, nor even because it can lead to the murder
But that would be to miss the wider point.

of schoolchildren, as it did at Sandy Hook elementary school last year, or the death of young movie-goers, as it did in Aurora,
Colorado, also last year dreadful though those losses are.

The foreign policy experts who gather in the thinktanks and congressional offices not far from the
navy yard often define national security to encompass anything that touches on America's
standing in the world. That ranges from its ability to project military force across the globe to its
attractiveness, its "soft power". For decades, this latter quality has been seen as one of the US's
primary assets, central to its ability to lead and persuade other nations.
But America's

gun disease diminishes its soft power. It makes the country seem less like a
model and more like a basket case, afflicted by a pathology other nations strive to avoid.
When similar gun massacres have struck elsewhere including in Britain lawmakers have
acted swiftly to tighten controls, watching as the gun crime statistics then fell. In the decade
after the rules were toughened in Australia in 1996, for example, firearm-related homicides
fell by 59, while suicides involving guns fell by 65.

Therefore we have to ban guns in order to maintain the U.S. power

But the US stays stubbornly where it is, refusing to act. When President Obama last tried, following the deaths of 20 children and six
staff at Sandy Hook at the end of 2012, his bill fell at the first senate hurdle. He had not proposed banning a single weapon or bullet
merely expanding the background checks required of someone wanting to buy a gun. But even that was too much. The national
security pundits who worry how a US president is perceived when he is incapable of protecting the lives of innocent Syrians abroad
should think how it looks when he is incapable of protecting the lives of innocent Americans at home.
On guns, the US so often the world leader in innovation and endeavour is the laggard, stuck at the bottom of the global class. Bill
Clinton perfectly distilled the essence of soft power when he said in 2008, "People the world over have always been more impressed
by the power of our example than by the example of our power." He was right. But every time a disturbed or angry individual is able
to vent his rage with an assault weapon, killing innocents with ease, the power of America's example fades a little more.

C2- Banning gun solves for issues

Best empirics provereducing handgun possession reduces total homicide rateshandguns
are the firearm of choice for violent crime Dixon 11
Nicholas Dixon (associate professor of philosophy, Alma College). Handguns, Philosophers, and the Right to Self-Defense.
International Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 25, no. 2. 2011.
Before turning to nonconsequentialist defenses of handguns based on the right to self-defense, a brief sketch of my original utilitarian
argument for prohibition is in order. Its starting point is a striking set of international data. The United States far outstrips
five other developed countries (Australia, Canada, Israel, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) in both handgun

ownership and handgun homicide rates per 100,000 people. The United States' handgun
homicide rate is over twenty times greater than that in these other countries, and its
handgun ownership rate is over nine times as high. 4 My reason for singling out handguns for prohibition in
the United States is that they are, in this country, the firearm of choice of criminals, being used in at
least 72.2 percent of firearms homicides in the years 20062010.5 Substantially reducing
the number of handguns in the U.S. will very likely substantially reduce the rate of total
homicide. This prediction is based not only on the noted statistics, but also on the following considerations, which constitute a

rudimentary causal theory. First, a large proportion of these crimes is currently committed with handguns. Since 1970, approximately
one-half of the homicides in the U.S. have been committed with handguns. In 2006-2010, an average of 6,909 homicides (48.7 percent
of all homicides) was committed per year With handguns.6

Second, because of their cheapness, concealability, ease of use, and lethality, handguns are
ideally suited to the commission of crimes and criminals are highly unlikely to be able to
commit as many violent crimes by switching to alternative weapons.
Third, other weapons that assailants might substitute for firearms are far less lethal than
handguns, and in the case of firearms other than handguns, although the wounds that they
inflict are more serious, their lower concealability makes it harder to inflict wounds in the
first place.'
social scientists have performed far more sophisticated statistical
analyses of much more comprehensive comparative data, and they provide strong support
for my causal hypothesis that prohibition would reduce homicide in the U S. In three separate studies of
Since the appearance of my first articles,

fourteen, eighteen, and twenty-one countries,

Martin Killias has found that the prevalence of firearms is strongly correlated with the
firearms homicide rate. The first study indicated a correlation of .746 (where 1 is a perfect correlation), with a probability
of less than 0.01 that this would happen by chance, the second produced a correlation of .476 .610 (p<0.031) and the third indicated
a correlation of .54 (p<0.05) when the countries with extreme scores are excluded.10 More important, both Killias's and other studies

have shown a correlation between gun ownership and total (gun plus non-gun) homicide rates.

Most notably, in a 2000

study of twenty-six high-income countries, David Hemenway and Matthew Miller found a
correlation of .69 (p<0.00). This study is of special interest because it investigated twenty-six of the twenty-seven countries
with a population of over one million defined by the World Bank as high income or highly industrialized. Focusing on a more
homogenous group of countries helps to narrow attention to the variable in questionfirearmsand minimizes the confounding
effect of other causes of homicide. Hemenway and Miller's study found that the overall homicide rate in the U.S. was 5.98 times
higher than in the other twenty-five countries, thus obvi- ating the objection that the total homicide rate in these other countries could
be just as high as in the U.S., due 'to non-handgun homicides. Finally, in a study of twelve

countries using some of Killias's data, Gregg Lee Carter concludes that total homicide is
correlated with gun ownership at a rate of .67 and with handgun ownership at a rate of .
84." In its review of the literature on the connection between firearms and violence, the
National Academy of Science concludes that "in comparisons among countries, there is a
substantial association between gun ownership and homicide." 14 To complete the argument that these

correlations indicate that handguns cause murder, we need to rule out alternative explanations of the data. First, causation may operate
in reverse, in that handgun ownership may be a response to high homicide rates, not a cause, because some people buy firearms to
protect them- selves against crime. Second, both handgun ownership and homicide rates may be a function of a third factor, while not
affecting each other. In this vein, some proponents of gun rights argue that the United States' very high handgun owner- ship and
overall homicide rates are both caused by some third factor unrelated to guns. The second hypothesis is hard to reconcile with the data.
Any causes that lead Americans to buy more guns and commit more homicides than inhabitants of other affluent societiesfor
example, a greater propensity to violenceshould equally affect homicide in general and not just homicides committed with firearms.
What we find, in contrast, is a far greater disparity between the United States and Western European countries in firearms homicide
than in non-gun homicide. The American firearm homicide rate is 4.96 times higher than the average rate in eighteen Western
European countries, but its non-gun homicide rate is only 1.96 times higher than the European rate.15 While this data lends

some support for the existence of a greater propensity to violence in the United States
independent of firearms, the only plausible explanation of the far greater disparity in
firearms homicide is that the prevalence of guns is itself a significant causal factor.

Thats key to maximizing utilitythe pain and death caused from handgun homicides far
outweighs any pleasure from gun ownership Dixon 93 Nicholas Dixon
(associate professor of philosophy, Alma College). Why We Should Ban Handguns In The United States. Saint Louis University
Law Review. 1993.
In 1990 there were 23,438 homicides in the United States, 9,923 of which are known to have been committed with handguns.2 Of the
639,271 robberies in the United States in 1990, 36.6% involved firearms,3 while 23.1% of the 1,054,863 aggravated assaults were
made with guns. 4 THESIS There are strong reasons for believing that one of the major causes of these 9,923

murders is the extremely high rate of private ownership of handguns in the United States.
Similarly, this high rate is also a major cause of the 233,973 firearms robberies and 243,673
firearms assaults. Reducing the handgun ownership rate will reduce handgun violence, and
hence the overall number of violent crimes. The most effective way to achieve such a
reduction is a ban on the private ownership of handguns, with exceptions narrowly confined
to the armed forces, the police, private security guards, and licensed gun collectors. A ban on
the private ownership of handguns will restrict the freedom of United States citizens and require an adjustment in the way that some of
them spend their leisure time. I accept that the burden of proof is on me to demonstrate that the benefits of my proposal outweigh its
costs. I discharge this burden in the rest of section I and reinforce my response throughout section II. Having shifted the burden of
proof to opponents of gun control, in section II I discuss responses that have been given to arguments for a handgun ban. My

argument is primarily a utilitarian discussion of the beneficial consequences of a handgun

ban (a reduction in the murder rate and a general decrease in violent crime, especially
robbery and aggravated assault). The pleasure and additional self-defense which is alleged
to result from owning and using handguns is trivial compared to the death and misery that
is caused by their misuse. However, my thesis could be equally well expressed in terms of rights (the right to life, freedom
from assault, and property of victims of handgun crimes). The restriction of the alleged right to bear arms is
minor compared to the violations of the rights of the victims of handgun crimes that occur
every day. I have focused on a handgun ban primarily because handguns are the weapon of choice of violent criminals. In 1990
handguns were used in 77.2% of murders involving firearms and 49.5% of all murders in the United States. More recent figures are

not available, but in 1967 96% of firearms used in robberies and 86% of those used in aggravated assaults were handguns.5 These
numbers are almost certainly attributable to their relative cheapness, their small size (and hence greater concealability), and the fact
that they are easy to use. At the same time, long guns (shot guns and rifles) are used more than

handguns in recreational pursuits, which, ceteris paribus, it would be desirable to allow to

go unhindered. Consequently, and in view of their minimal criminal use, I see no pressing
need for a ban on long guns. Because of the high percentage of violent crimes that are
committed with handguns, and because they are uniquely suited to such use, a handgun ban
will result in a reduction in overall rates of violent crime.6
A handgun ban is the best way to reduce handgun homicidesit solves the problem at its
source by reducing demand, Dixon
Dixon 93 Nicholas Dixon (associate professor of philosophy, Alma College). Why We Should Ban Handguns In The United States.
Saint Louis University Law Review. 1993.
I am assuming that the number of handguns in a country depends on (1) the permissiveness of its

handgun laws, and (2) the demand for handguns. Handgun laws in the United States are far
more permissive than in any of the comparison countries.' Since the law is much more easily controlled
than the people's wishes, by far the easiest way to reduce handgun ownership is to pass more restrictive laws. My proposal, then, is
that the best way to reduce handgun homicides is to pass maximally restrictive laws - a
handgun ban. Two interesting points concerning the demand for handguns are worth noting.

First, it is probable that, doubtless due in part to the long history of private gun ownership
in this country, there is more demand for them in the United States than in the other
countries.' In order to achieve the same levels of gun ownership in the United States as in
other countries, therefore, it is likely that even more restrictive handgun laws will be
required.
Second, a reduction in the number of handguns in this country (by means of a handgun ban) can
reasonably be expected to result in a reduction in demand, which will in turn cause a
further reduction in ownership levels. This result is because a major reason for handgun
ownership at present is to defend oneself against the huge number of people who already
have handguns. (See infra section II.E for a discussion of the defensive efficacy of handguns.) I propose stemming
this spiral of gun ownership at its source rather than simply acquiescing in the unlimited
proliferation of handguns.
Extension for Contention 1
If theres even a 50% chance my studies are right, vote aff because the expected utility of a
handgun ban outweighs Dixon 93 Nicholas Dixon (associate professor of philosophy, Alma College). Why We Should
Ban Handguns In The United States. Saint Louis University Law Review. 1993.

After a detailed analysis of the literature that opposes a handgun ban, I have shown that
none of these arguments seriously respond to the "burden of proof' challenge which I present in
section IC. I have established a strong prima facie case for my hypothesis, justifying at least an experimental handgun ban, for, say,
twenty-five years. 136 If my hypothesis is wrong, a minor restriction on people's behavior will have

been needlessly imposed, and whatever self-defense handguns may have provided will have
been lost. This loss is minimal in comparison with the many harmful uses of handguns
which, if I am correct, would be prevented by a handgun ban. Consequently, even assuming
that there is only a 50% chance that my hypothesis is true (though I have argued that the
probability is far higher), a handgun ban is justified on the ground of its greater expected
utility. I have not addressed what may be considered the strongest objection to a handgun ban: the Second Amendment, and its
guarantee of the right to bear arms. What I have shown is that there is a strong utilitarian case for banning handguns, and that the
constitutionality of such a ban therefore merits careful consideration.'37