Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A2 Political parties
https://www.npr.org/2016/09/13/493763493/charts-see-how-quickly-white-non-college-voters-have-fled-the-democratic-party
As it turns out, it's not just about beliefs: according to a new report from the Pew Research Center, "the two parties look less alike
today than at any point over the last quarter-century."
A2 Constitutionality
1. Background checks are consistent with the Second Amendment
Slate 17
The Second Amendment, of course, is no exception . In the 2008 case of District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court told us that we have a
constitutional right to possess firearms for self-defense, at least within our homes. But the opinion never suggested that this right was unconditional or immune from all regulation.
In fact, Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, said just the opposite. In Heller, he specifically said that “ the right secured by the Second
Amendment is not unlimited.” Protecting the right to keep and bear arms is not the same as forbidding all regulations on
that right. We can protect that right and still require background checks, permits, and training. We can still regulate when, where, and
what kinds of guns are allowed. In some cases, we can regulate who can obtain guns, imposing restrictions on, for instance, felons, the mentally ill, and known terrorists. We can
ban firearms such as military-style assault weapons that (like child pornography) plainly cause far more harm than they add in value. We can require those who are negligent with
their weapons (as we do those who are negligent with their words in defamation cases) to be held liable for the harm they inflict on others. We can do all of these things; we just
don’t. There might be policy reasons to debate the pros and cons of specific regulations, but there’s no reason to assume that there is a constitutional problem.
individual right to bear arms does not extend to felons or the mentally ill. Such “longstanding
prohibitions” have been uniformly upheld in post-Heller cases in the federal courts. Both United States v. Barton and United States v. Smoot upheld the federal ban on possession
If Congress may prohibit felons, the mentally ill, and other unfit
of a firearm by convicted felons.
persons from possessing firearms, it follows that Congress may also take
reasonable measures to enforce the prohibition such as background checks at the point
of sale. Indeed, Heller specifically observed that firearm sales would continue to be subject to reasonable “conditions and qualifications” enacted by legislators. The Court in
Heller assumed that such regulations would exist when it ruled that the District of Columbia was required to pemit the plaintiff to own a handgun, “assuming that [he] is not
disqualified from the exercise of Second Amendment rights.”
A2 NRA Lobbying/Backlash
1. Its super popular now - 74% of NRA members and 90% of the general public support UBCs
Chang 2013
John Woods, who also spoke Thursday in Austin, said his girlfriend was killed after being shot multiple times during the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007. He said her family and
families in Newtown, Conn., would not have had to suffer had there been stricter laws on obtaining guns. “Nobody should have gone through what they’ve gone through,” Woods
said. “I can tell you it’s like being ripped out of paradise.” Ninety percent of Americans and 74 percent of National Rife Association members
support background checks, Leffingwell said. Acevedo said that it was common sense to pass legislation supporting it.
7. AT Repeal - Other gun control bills have never been repealed - federal
background checks have stood since the 1990s
A2 Federal Action bad/Federalism/States better
1. United States is the 50 states and federal government
Oakley,
American Civil Procedure: A Guide to Civil Adjudication in US Courts, Edited by John Bilyeu Professor of Law at the
University of California, Davis, and Vikram D. Amar, Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of the School of Law
of the University of California at Davis, Kluwer Law International, 20 09, page 19
Although it is commonplace today to refer to “the United States” as a single entity and as the subject of statements that grammatically
employ singular verbs, it is important to remember that “the United States” remains in many important ways a collective term. The
enduring legal significance of the fifty states that together constitute the United States, and their essential dominion over most legal
matters affecting day-to-day life within the United States, vastly complicates any attempt to summarize the civil procedures within the
United States. Within the community of nations, the United States is a geopolitical superpower that acts through a federal
government granted constitutionally specified and limited powers. The organizing principle of the federal Constitution,1 however, is
one of popular sovereignty, with governmental powers distributed in the first instance to republican institutions of government
organized autonomously and uniquely in each of the fifty states. Although there are substantial similarities in the organization of state
governments, idiosyncrasies abound.
2. The pro isn’t arguing for a new background check system that is enforced by
commandeering state officials. It is simply arguing for an expansion of the existing
system to cover private sales. The current system does not rely on commandeering for
enforcement, instead it uses federal resources to enforce like the ATF. This is the
same situation with immigration – the federal government cannot require the states to
enforce federal immigration law, but the feds can enforce federal immigration law,
which is why we have ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).
3. Most states legislatures are Republican and are more likely to weaken gun control than strengthen it
Stephen Wolfe, November 14, 2016,
Following the 2014 midterm wave, Republicans dominated state legislatures at a rate not seen since the
Civil War. Democrats had hoped to rebound in 2016, but thanks in part to Trump’s resilience and widespread Republican gerrymandering, they only made
modest gains. Democrats flipped four chambers, but lost control of three, leaving Republicans [are] in charge of 68 state legislative
4. Just do both.
5. Their impacts have no brink (usually)
technology have all fallen by the wayside. A majority of voters support stricter gun laws, but there’s a
lack of bipartisan support in Congress. A little more than three weeks after a gunman killed 58 people at a concert in Las Vegas, gun
control advocates are still pushing for legislation to help prevent future massacres, but most of the legislation has already stalled in Congress. After it
was revealed that the Las Vegas shooter used bump stocks to increase how fast he could shoot, there seemed to be wide bipartisan support for
regulating accessories that turn semi-automatic weapons into fully-automatic ones. Even the National Rifle Association, a staunch pro-gun lobby, said it
was willing to consider regulating bump stocks. As with many gun control pushes, the effort has already fallen by the
wayside despite the support. A Politico poll released in October found that 64% of voters support stricter gun laws, but wide disparities
exist between Republicans and Democrats. 83% of Democrats support stricter laws whereas 49% of Republican voters support them. (Business Insider,
October 28,
3.
Efficacy
A2 Spike in purchases
https://pf.millennialsd.com/2017/11/07/review-of-arguments-from-minneapple/
First, all or nearly all of the potential purchasers would likely try to buy guns anyhow. It’s just that in the world of
UBC legislation, they would buy them a bit faster. It’s hard to see what the impact to that is.
Second, the goal of UBCs (and any gun control law) is to reduce gun violence over the long term. A short-term spike
is not a compelling reason to vote Con.
Third, it’s a silly reason not to pass UBCs, as it means that we would never ever pass any gun control legislation, as it
would cause a short-term spike in sales. This leaves us with nothing to address gun violence.
Fourth, evidence the Pro reads that says that gun violence declines over time with UBCS in certain states would
assume any short-term spike, as the study would cover the entire period the law is in place.
Fifth, teams can argue they are advocating the adoption of UBCS now., as in right now. If UBCs were to be adopted
immediately, there would be no way for those who fear the law to spike purchases.
Sixth, we’ve just had two mass shootings in 45 days. While unlikely, it is possible that those shootings may result in
the passage of stricter gun laws. Certainly it is at least reasonable for people to fear that. So any spike argument is
really non-unique.
A2 Gun Registry
1. Background checks don't lead to a gun registry
Trumble 2013
Here’s what happens next: The buyer leaves the store with the firearm. The NICS system destroys all records of running a check
on that buyer within 24 hours.7 On the 4473 form, the dealer marks that the buyer passed the NICS check, writes down the transaction number and the serial
number of the gun that was sold, and files it away, where it must be kept in a paper file by law for 20 years. Thus, there is only one official record of the sale,
and it resides in the individual gun dealer’s files. Currently, there are approximately 59,000 gun dealers across all 50 states,9 each of which keeps individual
files of the approximately 16 million 4473 forms that are filled out every year.10 There are only four ways the government can ever even see this record: during a compliance
inspection of dealer records, during an ongoing criminal investigation, if your gun is found at a crime scene, or if the gun store goes out of business.
There has been considerable interest in closing the private-sales loophole by simply requiring that all gun sales, whether in the primary or secondary
market, be subject to background checks. California has instituted such a system for firearms transactions, which must go through an FFL who then
charges a fee for conducting the background check. Such a system, were it to be enforceable, would make it more difficult for disqualified people to
obtain a gun. The fundamental question is how to enforce such a system. California requires that handguns be registered to their owner, which is useful
in holding owners accountable for the disposition of their handguns. Even without a registration requirement, a universal background
check system could be enforced in a variety of ways, including law-enforcement oversight of gun shows and undercover
“buy and bust” operations by the police. Whether the California system is successful in reducing gun violence has not been established (but
see Webster, Vernick, and Bulzacchelli 2009).[29]
criminals and people illegally in possession of firearms. Registration systems also create
accountability for firearm owners and discourage illegal sales. Information generated by firearm registration systems
can also help protect law enforcement officers responding to an incident by providing them with information about whether firearms may be present at the scene and, if so, how
Firearm registration laws can lead to the identification and prosecution of
many and what types
violent criminals by helping law enforcement quickly and reliably “trace” (identify the
source of) firearms recovered from crime scenes. Firearm registration laws create comprehensive records of firearm ownership,
which include a full description of each firearm and identify the owner. Comprehensive registration laws also require a firearm to be re-registered whenever title to the firearm is
transferred, and law enforcement to be notified whenever the weapon is lost or stolen. As a result, registration laws help law enforcement quickly and reliably identify the owner of
any firearm used in a crime. Firearm registration laws also help law enforcement retrieve firearms from persons who have become legally prohibited from possessing
them through criminal convictions or other prohibitions. Comprehensive registration laws require gun owners to renew their registration annually or explain why
they should no longer be legally responsible for the weapon. During the renewal process, owners undergo additional background checks to ensure that they have
not fallen into a class prohibited from possessing firearms. The renewal process, therefore, creates an opportunity for law enforcement to remove illegally possessed
firearms.
A2 Self Defense
1. There’s nothing that stops legal purchasers from getting guns
2. For every self-defense killing, 34 innocent people die
Washington Post
For every criminal killed in self-defense, 34 innocent people die. The challenge to that argument is that, data show, guns are rarely used in self-defense -- especially relative to the
rate at which they're used in criminal homicides or suicides. A recent report from the Violence Policy Center, a gun control advocacy group, put those numbers in some
perspective, and I dug up the raw numbers from the FBI's homicide data. Take a look: In 2012, there were 8,855 criminal gun homicides in the FBI's homicide database, but only
258 gun killings by private citizens that were deemed justifiable, which the FBI defines as "the killing of a felon, during the commission of a felony, by a private citizen." That
works out to one justifiable gun death for every 34 unjustifiable gun deaths.
3. People are bad shooters, so they either kill innocent bystanders or fail to
stop the attacker.
The Trace 2015 Citing NGVAC
Yet the existing research shows that this faith in good guys with guns is misplaced. An FBI report detailing 160 active shooting incidents from 2000-2013
found that only one incident was stopped by a concealed carry permit holder, and he happened to be a Marine. (Four others were stopped by armed
guards, and two more by off-duty police officers.) By comparison, 21 active shooters were stopped by unarmed citizens — good guys without guns. In
several cases, a good guy with a gun has attempted to intervene and either been killed, injured, or nearly shot the wrong
person. Gun advocates might argue that the reason so few concealed carriers have intervened in active shootings comes down to bad luck: They just
haven’t been in the right place at the right time; had they been, then surely more mass shootings would have been prevented. This line of argument is
refuted by multiple controlled experiments designed to test how good guys with guns fare in dangerous situations. One of these analyses came from an
independent study commissioned by the National Gun Victims Action Council (NGVAC). The study analyzed 77 participants of
varying skill levels who went through three different self-defense scenarios. The results were harrowing. In the first
scenario, 7 of the 77 participants shot an innocent bystander, and overall, in scenarios one and two, most of the
participants, regardless of skill level, were killed. In the third scenario, where the suspect was not a threat, 23 percent of the
participants fired anyway. As the NGVAC points out, none of the participants came close to the accuracy or judgement required
to stop an active shooter or a criminal.
4.If the self-defense argument were true, the US would be the safest society
in the world, but it is the most violent
John Donohue is C Wendell and Edith M Carlsmith Professor of Law at Stanford University, August 27, 2015. Ban guns, end
shootings? How the evidence stacks up from around the world, http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/27/opinions/us-guns-
evidence/index.html
I've been researching gun violence -- and what can be done to prevent it -- in the U.S. for 25 years. The fact is that if NRA claims
about the efficacy of guns in reducing crime were true, the U.S. would have the lowest homicide rate among industrialized
nations instead of the highest homicide rate (by a wide margin). The U.S. is by far the world leader in the number of guns in
civilian hands. The stricter gun laws of other "advanced countries" have restrained homicidal violence, suicides and gun
accidents -- even when, in some cases, laws were introduced over massive protests from their armed citizens.
The 40 percent estimate is just that—an estimate—and the debate about it speaks to the challenge of trying to assess the volume of transactions that are completely unregulated
and take place anonymously, with no questions asked and no records kept. Despite its flaws, many researchers agree that 40 percent is likely a
rough approximation of the number of gun transfers that occur without a background check. Additionally, data from one state
that requires a background check for all handgun sales—Michigan—provide further support for this statistic. According to an analysis
conducted by the Michigan State Police in 2012, private party sales comprised 48 percent of handgun sales in the state.
Nevertheless, proponents of universal background checks, including this report’s authors, would be well served by acknowledging the limitations of the statistic. However, the lack
of information about the exact size of the overall private marketplace for guns is not particularly important. The more crucial question is: How frequently do criminals acquire guns
in this marketplace? For that question, we have reliable data demonstrating the real dangers inherent in no-background check sales. A survey conducted by the
Bureau of Justice Statistics, or BJS, of thousands of state and federal prison inmates found that more than two-thirds—68.8
percent—of those who had used a gun in a crime had acquired it from a source other than a licensed dealer in a transaction
that did not require a background check .This number becomes more significant when paired with another statistic from this survey of inmates: 84 percent of
criminals who used a gun in a crime reported that they were already prohibited from possessing them at the time of their gun crime. This means that they could not have passed a
background check had they sought to buy a gun from a licensed dealer, and therefore relied on friends, street sellers, and unlicensed private sellers to obtain guns.
But what Sen. Cruz and others fail to understand or acknowledge is that every straw purchase involves a private transfer. The straw
purchaser goes through a background check, buys the gun from a dealer, then gives or resells the gun to the prohibited person for
whom it was bought. Under the current system, it is extremely difficult to prove that this handoff violated the law. [Currently] One
must prove that the purchaser either bought the gun with the specific intent of transferring it to someone else—other than as
a bona-fide gift—or that he or she knew that the ultimate recipient was legally prohibited from gun ownership. After all,
because of the lack of background checks on secondary market sales, right now it is perfectly legal for someone to buy a gun
from a licensed dealer and decide a week later to sell the gun to a stranger in a no-questions-asked transaction.
Prosecutors seeking to convict someone of a straw purchase face a particularly challenging burden of proof because they
must demonstrate that the secondary transaction fell into the former category rather than the latter, which turns on what was in the
person’s mind at the time they purchased the gun from the dealer. A universal background check requirement is therefore
crucial to effective prosecution of straw purchasers. This change in the law would make it much easier for law enforcement to
assess the straw purchaser’s mindset at the time they made the purchase from the dealer. If that person quickly transfers that gun
without a background check, then not only has he violated the new background check requirement, but he has also demonstrated his
unlawful intent regarding the entire transaction.
A2 Black Market
1. Decreases Gun Trafficking
NCBI 17
Table 3 provides the estimates from two models for regressions on intrastate gun trafficking, model 1 without the local gun ownership prevalence proxy covariate and model 2
with this covariate. When not controlling for local gun ownership levels, strong gun dealer regulation and oversight (β = −1.92, p = 0.042), regulation of private handgun sales
(β = −1.60, p = 0.006), and discretionary permit-to-purchase licensing (β = −1.50, p = 0.040) were each associated with statistically significant lower levels of intrastate trafficking.
We used the model estimates to calculate the percentage difference between predicted intrastate trafficking had a city not had each of the policies that were significantly
associated with lower intrastate gun trafficking and the estimated trafficking levels with each of the policies. Using model coefficients to estimate intrastate trafficking levels had
strong gun dealer regulations and oversight than, 68% lower in cities where the
state had discretionary permit-to-purchase licensing, and 48% lower in cities
where the state regulated private handgun sales. Reports by state or local law enforcement that they ever undertake
undercover stings of gun dealers were not independently associated with intrastate trafficking levels.
The lack of federal regulations for firearm sales by private owners is arguably the most important gap in existing laws that
inhibit law enforcement’s ability to prevent illegal gun sales. Straw purchasers and traffickers are likely to face far less risk
in states that do not regulate private firearm sales. Our findings suggest that closing this gap would deter illegal gun trafficking. These findings are
consistent with the results of an observational study of illegal sales at gun shows revealing far more illegal gun sales at gun shows in states where private gun sales were not
regulated than in California where private sales can only be made after the potential buyer has undergone and passed a background check.
2. Increase in cost decreases gun availability on the black market (in case)
LaFollette 2k
(Hugh, USF St. Petersburg Philosophy Professor, “Gun Control,” Ethics 110 (January 2000): pp. 263–281) PO
But this does not resolve the issue, for it does not establish what gun control advocates claim it shows, namely, that gun control is an effective way of substantially lessening the murder rate. First, a statistical
correlation shows that two things are linked, but it does not tell us if the first caused the second, the second caused the first, or if there is some third factor which caused both. Second, even if the items are causally
related, we do not know that changing the cause will automatically and straightforwardly change the effect since another factor might intervene to sustain the effect. Gun advocates proffer their own armchair
explanation for the correlations: These correlations reflect the character of the respective social and political systems. The European countries where murder rates are lower have more social solidarity and are more
heterogeneous than the United States. Whether these social factors explain all the correlation is debatable, but I am confident they explain some of it. Were the United States to regulate guns as tightly as most
European countries, our murder rates would arguably fall, but they would not immediately plummet to their levels. We might settle the issue if we conducted controlled experiments, randomly dividing our population
in half, giving half of them guns, removing all the guns from the other half, and then monitoring the murder rate. Of course, that would be morally unacceptable, politically unrealistic, and probably even scientifically
unachievable. Before we had enough time to exclude all possible intervening causes, sufficient time might have elapsed so that new intervening causes could have emerged. But we are not in the dark. We have
empirical evidence that helps adjudicate between competing explanations of the correlation. First, we have empirical evidence, bolstered by armchair arguments, that guns are more lethal than other weapons.
Some claim the ratio is 5:1; no estimates are lower than 2:1 (Reiss, A. J., Jr. and Roth, J. A. 1993: 260). This partly explains the strong correlation between guns and homicides. If people get angry the same number
of times, those using the most lethal weapons are more likely to kill their victims. Second, the nature of secondary gun markets helps explain how the widespread availability of guns increases crime in general, and
homicides in specific. Various opponents of gun control claim that "If we outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns." Armchair arguments suggest why this is a silly claim. Where, one might ask, do criminals get their
guns? They often steal them or buy them from those who purchased them legally. Even guns obtained from other criminals are usually traceable to people who purchased them legally. Empirical evidence supports
this armchair supposition. Most criminals report having stolen their guns, received them from a friend or family member, or purchased them from someone
who had stolen it. At least half a million guns are stolen each year (Cook, P. J. et al. 1995: 81), and these swell the numbers of guns available illegally. Not only does the primary (legal) market effect the availability
of guns on secondary markets, it also affects the price of guns on those markets, much "like the analogous markets for motor vehicles or prescription drugs" (Cook, P. J. et al. 1995: 71). As
we restrict
availability of guns in the primary market, the supply of guns in the secondary markets decreases and their cost increases
(Cook, P. J. et al. 1995: 73). This increase in cost will diminish teenagers' ability to obtain guns, since they are least able to afford hefty
prices. Since teenagers commit most deadly crimes, decreasing the availability of legal guns will thereby decrease the
number of homicides. Conversely, having huge numbers of legally available guns increases the number of guns on secondary markets and typically lowers their price. This makes it easier for
prospective criminals, including teenagers, to obtain guns. Third, having a gun around the house (or on the person) - even for self-protection - apparently increases the chance that someone in the family will kill
themselves with the gun, or will be the victim of a homicide or an accident. One study found that "for every time a gun in the home was involved in a self-protection homicide, they noted 1.3 unintentional deaths, 4.5
criminal homicides, and 37 firearm suicides" (Reiss, A. J., Jr. and Roth, J. A. 1993: 267). This implies that for every case where someone in a gun-owning household kills an intruder to thwart a life-threatening
attack, nearly 43 people in similar households will die from a gunshot. Taken together the evidence does not prove that widespread availability of guns increases the number of homicides. However, that empirical
evidence, bolstered by earlier armchair arguments, makes the claim highly plausible.
3. It’s harder to get guns from the black market than legally
Cook,14
the underground gun market as a whole has high transactions
This hypothesis would help reconcile our findings in Underground Gun Markets that
costs (include high price markups, long waits, the existence of brokers who charge transactions fees, and a nontrivial
chance of failure for each attempt to get a gun),9 7 yet over 80% of Chicago's homicides involve guns.98 While we do not have direct measures of
accessibility to gang members and our comparison group of non-gang members, we do see some differences in how the two groups get guns: gang members seem to be more
reliant on trafficking and straw purchases. But the fact that the guns taken from gang members are on average quite old, despite the widely-reported preference of criminals for
newer guns, suggests that even for members of violent Chicago street gangs, the underground market for guns does not "work" as
well as the licit market. Regulation and enforcement in that sense are making a difference.
4. Chicago empirically proves its really hard to get black market guns.
Washpo
This question also implies that criminals can always find a gun, no matter what we do, which is also inconsistent with the
facts. Although a gun is an excellent tool to use if you are a robber for increasing compliance of victims, only 29 percent of robberies
reported in the National Crime Victimization Survey involved the robber’s use of a firearm. [8] Data from in an in-depth study of the
underground gun market in Chicago found that only twenty percent of male arrestees who participated in an anonymous
survey reported that they had owned a handgun. Sixty percent of those who did own one reported that it had taken them
more than a week to search for and obtain a handgun. Criminals were wary of purchasing firearms from sellers they did not
know or trust, often reported difficulty finding a trusted supplier of guns, and faced considerable mark-ups in price from the
legal market. [9]
As the NRA and other pro-gun lobbies seem to be able to intimidate Congress to an extent that it won’t try again to pass a law to tighten gun legislation any time soon, several
states passed their own stricter gun laws. New York, California, Massachusetts, Illinois, Rhode Island and Maryland have some of the strictest gun laws in the country. Several
states require background checks at private sales. And even though studies show that the rates of murders and
of these
suicides are lower in states with strict gun laws, these states could be doing even better if it weren’t for their neighbours
with lax gun laws. Illinois, for instance, borders Wisconsin and Indiana, two states with hardly any restrictions on gun sales. In Chicago, which has
especially restrictive gun laws, more than half of the guns confiscated by police come from out-of-state. No wonder then
that Chicago’s police chief is one of the most vocal advocates of universal nation-wide background checks for gun buyers.
A handful of states, including California and Rhode Island, require universal background checks for all private party transactions. If someone wanted to purchase from an
unlicensed seller at a gun show or anywhere else, he or she would have to go to a federally licensed seller to certify the transaction: the licensed dealer would have to perform a
background check before the sale could go through and keep a record of the transfer. Other States, including Illinois, require that sellers register the transaction with
the state, though they don’t (Illinois requires background checks at gun shows). States such as Hawaii
require background checks for all private sales
The vast majority of
require all gun purchasers, including in the private market, to do a background check and obtain a gun license, which lasts for 10 days
states have no regulations whatsoever on private gun sales, except for vague statutes that prohibit
“knowingly” selling firearms to someone who is a criminal or has mental health problems.
1. It’s better than now, where people get a gun without going through the
system. Even if it gets overloaded, there’s still going to be more checks.
2. UBC legislation would improve the system - either the computers need to
be faster or they just need to hire more people
Jim Kessler, 1-30-2013
States are supposed to supply disqualifying records to the federal database, but in some cases they do a horrible job. Pennsylvania,
for example, has only one disqualifying mental health record in its database.28 Oklahoma has two.29 Virginia recently improved its
mental health record contributions, but only after a crazed killer erroneously cleared a background check and purchased several
firearms that he used at Virginia Tech.30 But it’s worth noting that many of the current legislative proposals for a universal
background check requirement would actually improve NICS as well, by incentivizing states to update their records or
providing them with additional funding to make such updates possible.
3. No backlog
Michael Cooper, April-10-13
More than 95 percent of the time the F.B.I., which oversees the background checks, can tell licensed gun dealers within
seconds if a buyer can own a gun
envisioned by FBI and USDS include processing background checks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to improve
overall response time and improving notification of local authorities when certain prohibited persons unlawfully attempt to purchase a firearm.
on-stronger-gun-laws-is-within-reach/
A2 Won’t Prosecute
1.Prosecutions are going up
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-gun-prosecutions-23-percent-after-sessions-memo
Today, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that, following the memorandum from Attorney General Sessions to prioritize firearm
prosecutions, the number of defendants charged with unlawful possession of a firearm increased nearly 23 percent in the second quarter
of 2017 (2,637) from the same time period in 2016 (2,149). “Violent crime is on the rise in many parts of this country, with 27 of our biggest 35 cities in the
country coping with rising homicide rates,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions. “Law abiding people in some of these communities are living in fear, as they see
families torn apart and young lives cut short by gangs and drug traffickers. Following President Trump’s Executive Order to focus on reducing crime, I directed federal
prosecutors to prioritize taking illegal guns off of our streets, and as a result, we are now prosecuting hundreds more firearms defendants. In the first three months since
the memo went into effect, charges of unlawful possession of a gun – mostly by previously convicted felons – are up by 23 percent. That sends a clear message to
criminals all over this country that if you carry a gun illegally, you will be held accountable. I am grateful to the many federal prosecutors and agents who are working
hard every day to make America safe again.” Based on data from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA), in Fiscal Year 2016 (starting October 1),
11,656 defendants were charged with firearms offenses under 18 U.S.C. 922 or 924. EOUSA projects that in Fiscal Year 2017, the Department is on pace to
charge 12,626 defendants with these firearms crimes. That would be the most federal firearms cases since 2005. It would also be an increase of eight percent from
Fiscal Year 2016, 20 percent from 2015, and an increase of 23 percent from 2014.
2. That completely misses the point because people who fail these checks are stopped
from getting the gun so it’s still effective.
These data show that the expansion of the state’s background check system has made it more difficult for some high-risk people to acquire guns. In the first two years after passage of HB 1229 ,
CBI conducted 29,634 background checks for unlicensed sales of firearms. Over that period, 393 sales
from unlicensed sellers were denied and upheld, including to people convicted of assault or sexual
assault, people under restraining orders, and people prohibited due to mental illness or mental
impairment. The number of checks conducted for unlicensed sales has increased since the law’s
passage.
The data also demonstrate the specific changes wrought in gun seller behavior. At the time of passage of the law, even during a period of record-high gun sales, CBI conducted few checks for
unlicensed transfers at sites other than gun shows outnumbered those at gun shows seven to one
(Figure 2). This suggests unlicensed sellers increasingly require background checks of their buyers
before completing their sales.
A2 No State data
1. Congress provided financial incentives for states to submit data - the problem’s already
getting fixed
White House 2016
Congress has prohibited specific categories of people from buying guns—from convicted felons to users of illegal drugs to individuals convicted of misdemeanor
In the wake of the shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007, Congress also created
crimes of domestic violence.
incentives for States to make as many relevant records as possible accessible to NICS. Over
the past three years, States have increased the number of records they make accessible by
nearly 70 percent. To further encourage this reporting, the Attorney General has written a letter to States highlighting the importance of receiving
complete criminal history records and criminal dispositions, information on persons disqualified for mental health reasons, and qualifying crimes of domestic violence.
The Administration will begin a new dialogue with States to ensure the background check system is as robust as possible, which is a public safety imperative.
Thus, the overall rate of gun ownership in the population as a whole has no net effect on crime rates,
including homicide rates.19 Consequently, even if gun control measures could reduce general gun
ownership levels, there is no sound reason to believe this would cause a reduction in crime rates. On the
other hand, gun control measures might reduce gun levels within some high-risk subsets of the
population, such as convicted criminals. Indeed, few gun control measures are intended to reduce
overall gun levels.20 In fact, they might reduce crime in other ways that do not require reducing gun
ownership levels, such as reducing the availability of guns in public places or deterring criminal use of
guns through harsh penalties.2' Thus, some gun control interventions might still be effective even
though higher overall gun levels do not increase crime.
Race
A2 Racism
1. Turn- Gun violence disproportionately affects black communities
DeFilippis and Hughes 15
And as federal prosecutors decide whether to file hate-crime charges against the shooter— 21-year-old white supremacist Dylann Roof, whose manifesto lays out his plans to
start a "race war"—some gun-rights advocates have argued that new gun control laws would disproportionately hurt black Americans and other minorities, claiming that similar
laws have disproportionately targeted these communities and contributed to the already-massive racial disparities in the US prison system. But these arguments also tend to
ignore the devastating consequences that weak gun laws have had for minority communities. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control, black Americans
are twice as likely as whites to be victims of gun homicide. According to a report from the Center for American Progress, in 2010, 65 percent of gun
murder victims between the ages of 15 and 24 were black, despite making up just 13 percent of the population. Gun homicide is also the leading cause of
death for black teens in the US, a group that also suffers gun injuries 10 times more frequently than their white counterparts. The numbers may help explain why an
overwhelming majority of black Americans—75 percent according to a 2013 Washington Post/ABC News poll—support stronger gun control
laws. Yet even in areas where local governments have enacted gun control measures, lax regulations elsewhere have sustained a robust network of unregulated private
transactions that allow gun dealers to look the other way while supplying gangs and other criminals with a vast assortment of weapons. This network leaves a place like Chicago,
which remains crippled by violence despite relatively strict gun laws, hard-pressed to keep weapons off the street—as this New York Times map illustrates, anybody in the city
who wants a gun need only take a short drive outside Cook County to get to a jurisdiction with much weaker regulations. A similar situation has arisen in Maryland, which despite
having some of the country's most stringent gun laws, has been plagued by violent crime in urban areas. Amid finger-pointing over the rioting that ravaged Baltimore earlier this
year, it's worth pointing out that the majority of crime guns are trafficked in from outside the state. So while the gun policies Maryland has implemented—including a policy
requiring individuals to pass a background check and obtain a permit prior to buying a firearm—have been shown to reliably reduce gun violence, neighboring states like
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia have much looser requirements, making it easy for weapons to flow across the border. RELATED: Gun Control Will Not Save America
from Racism This haphazard patchworks of state and local gun laws has enabled many private gun dealers to effectively exploit gang violence and crime to boost sales. Chuck's
Gun Shop, for example, which operates just outside Chicago, is responsible for selling at least 1,300 crime guns since 2008, and one study found that 20 percent of all guns used
in Chicago crimes recovered within a year of purchase came from the store, because existing gun laws allow the store to sell firearms to criminals who would undoubtedly fail a
background check if it were required. The same is true for Realco, a Maryland gun shop on the outskirts of Washington, DC: Between 1992 and 2009, law enforcement agents
from Maryland and DC traced 2,500 crime guns back to Realco, four times more than were traced to second most prolific crime-gun dealer in Maryland. The disastrous effects of
these policies has overwhelmingly been borne by minority communities. In Chicago, for example, 76 percent of murder victims between 1991 and 2011 were black, 19 percent
were Hispanic, and just 4 percent were white. The cause of these deaths was overwhelmingly gun violence. Across the country, the evidence suggests that weak gun laws
not only play into the hands of mass murderers looking for the easiest way to commit atrocity, but also exacerbate the tragic, everyday violence that
disproportionately cripples minority communities.
They found that those with firearms were about 4.5 times more likely to be shot
than those who did not carry, utterly belying this oft repeated mantra. The reasons for this, the authors suggest, are manifold. " A gun
may falsely empower its possessor to overreact, instigating and losing otherwise tractable conflicts with similarly armed
persons”
3. Turn bc Current permissive gun laws are racist, Background checks benefit
minorities
NYT 2015
Our permissive gun laws are a manifestation of racism, an evil that, in other contexts, most gun-control advocates see as a fundamental threat to American society. We’ve heard
a lot recently about how blacks still don’t feel safe in this country. You can argue about how seriously to take complaints from black students at elite universities or even whether
outrageous cases of unjustified police shootings are just isolated occurrences. But there’s no argument that black people in the “bad parts” of our cities have to live with utterly
unacceptable levels of gun violence. In 2010, blacks, who make up only 13 percent of the population, were 55 percent of gun homicide
victims. It’s no surprise that [Thus,]blacks favor stricter gun controls considerably more than whites do. How does racism enter into this
picture? Let me put it in personal terms. I spend a fair amount of time in Chicago, where the newspapers regularly offer front-page reports of shootings from the previous night.
Checking The Tribune on a recent morning, I learned that two people were killed and a dozen wounded. You might think that a steady stream of such reports (this year, Chicago
will have over 2,700 shootings, with over 400 people killed) would induce high levels of fear, especially since many shootings occur on the streets. In fact, I’m not particularly
afraid, since — like most Chicagoans — I’m hardly ever where the violence occurs. There’s something to worry about only if you live in certain overwhelmingly black communities
on the West and South sides of town. (The papers publish helpful maps showing how the killings are distributed.) These are where almost all the shootings occur, and the
large majority of victims (and perpetrators) are black. The patterns are similar in other large American cities, so that those who live with gun violence as an
imminent, personal threat are mostly black. But imagine if there regularly were shootings in previously “safe” white areas. Now there are frequent killings on the Magnificent Mile,
the Gold Coast and in Lincoln Park. Both the perpetrators and the victims are white, and, despite greatly increased police protection, the violence contin- ues. Given the strong
support for gun control among residents of these areas, the cause would quickly become very personal. Chicago has relatively strong gun laws, but the city borders on Indiana,
where the laws are much laxer. My neighbors and I would join a vigorous and relentless campaign for stricter national gun laws.
In a Pew poll taken last year, an overwhelming majority of blacks, 72%, said it was more important to control
The Target Audience
gun ownership than to protect the right to own guns. Only 20% said that protecting the right to own guns was more important. There’s a good reason why
few African-Americans associate guns with “freedom” and “liberty.” The national U.S. homicide rate is 5.3 per 100,000 people. Among blacks, it’s 20.9 per 100,000. That’s four
times the national rate and seven times the white rate. In 82% of black-victim homicides in which the fatal weapon can be identified, it’s a gun. And 73% of those gun deaths are
inflicted by handguns.
5. TURN- Urban Crime gives police a pretense for brutality which outweighs.
Yale 15
This leads to another reason guns are inimical to protest: they might incite police to react roughly, as has happened many times in the past, even when rallies were nominally or
largely peaceful. What if the protesters had been armed at the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968—where police, goaded by the defiant mayor, were already itching for a
confrontation— or in Seattle in 2000, when police battled anarchists smashing store windows? What if the Occupy Wall Street protesters had stashed guns in their tents before
the New York City Police Department descended on Zuccotti Park to disband their encampment? We cannot imagine guns in each of these cases because the police never would
Police typically justify rough treatment of protesters by saying the
have allowed such protests in the fi rst place.
latter had become unruly, violent, abusive, and posed a threat to the larger community. In
many cities in 2011, police departments broke up Occupy camps on the grounds that they were becoming dangerous. Guns in the hands of protesters only strengthen the police’s
case for subduing protest. Further, consider the prospect of armed protesters in the face of our increasingly militarized police. Many observers of the Occupy movement
commented on the militaristic approach taken by police, especially in disbanding the protests. A New York Times article entitled “When the Police Go Military” offered a
summation: “Riot police offi cers tear- gassing protesters at the Occupy movement in Oakland, Calif. The surprising nighttime invasion of Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan,
carried out with D- Day like secrecy by offi cers deploying klieg lights and a military- style sound machine. And campus police offi cers in helmets and face shields dousing
demonstrators at the University of California Davis with pepper spray.”89 The article went on to say that such actions stem from years of police department build- up during the
police departments
War on Terror. Facing the possibility of a domestic terror attack and showered with money from the Department of Homeland Security,
across the country have bulked up on military gear —even in small towns—and shown greater readiness to employ SWAT
teams for all manner of incidents, including nonviolent protests.90 In his book The Democracy Project, activist David Graeber writes of the anomalous presence of a SWAT team
at a small Occupy protest soon after the Zuccotti Park sweep. Cato Institute fellow Timothy Lynch complains of an increasingly “militaristic mind- set” among police, apparent in
“the way they search and raid homes and the way they deal with the public.”91 Lynch goes on to explain that “the more police fail to defuse confrontations but instead help create
them—be it with their equipment, tactics or demeanor—the more ties with community members are burned. . . . The effect is a loss of civility, and an erosion of constitutional
rights, rather than a building of good will.”92 The journalist Radley Balko quotes a New Hampshire resident critical of his town’s plan to purchase a BearCat (a kind of armored
vehicle) for its police department: “It promotes violence. . . . We should promote more human interaction rather than militarize.”93 A militarized police, according to Lynch,
endangers civility on both sides. Sending a SWAT team to a nonviolent, gun- free protest is an uncivil gesture by the police; it is an expression of deep suspicion. At the very
least, it is a demonstrative threat to the protesters not to get out of hand—or, as Graeber argues, if the protesters are obviously peaceful, a SWAT team is a heavy- handed
militarized police are more likely to create
attempt to threaten them into protesting less vocally—or just less. Further, as Lynch suggests,
than defuse confrontation. It is diffi cult to imagine how armed protesters, in the face of a SWAT team, could make the situation better for the protesters
and uphold their right to speech. An armed protest facing a SWAT team is a combustible mixture; the presence of guns provides a perfect
excuse for the police to crack down. Police were happy to disperse Occupy camps on far lesser grounds, including supposed public health
threats. Imagine what they would do in the face of AR- 15s. Even if they did not physically confront armed protesters, what would protest look like under those circumstances? I
can’t imagine that it would be anything we could describe as free. To the contrary, it would be unbearably tense, electric, and ultimately muted as a result of the weaponry. But of
course, police would outlaw protest in the fi rst place, if protesters were armed. We can only exercise the right of assembly if assembly is nonviolent. When guns are present,
especially among protesters, both assembly and free speech quickly vanish.
A2 Racist History
1. History shouldn’t determine current policy
Winkler 13
Of course, not every gun law in American history was motivated by racism. In fact, some of our earliest gun laws had nothing to do with prejudice.
After 1820, for instance, a wave of laws swept through the South and Midwest barring people from carrying concealed weapons. These laws weren't racist in origin; blacks in
many of these states were already prohibited from even owning a gun. The target of concealed carry laws was white people, namely violence-prone men who were a bit too eager
to defend their honor by whipping out their guns. These laws, which might be thought of as the first modern gun control laws, had their origin in reducing criminal violence among
whites. Moreover, Keene's claim that gun control has racist roots is not made to correct the historical record. He uses that history to raise doubts about President Obama's
proposals for background checks and restrictions on high-capacity magazines and assault weapons. Of course, there is no evidence any of these laws are [not]
motivated by even the hint of racism. To suggest that we shouldn't adopt any gun regulations today because our ancestors had
racist gun laws is, to be generous, far-fetched. Property law was once profoundly racist, allowing racially restrictive covenants; voting law was once profoundly racist,
allowing literacy tests; marriage law was once profoundly racist, allowing no interracial marriage. Does that mean we should never have laws regulating property, voting, or
marriage?
2. TURN- firearm ownership is historically tied with racial violence and hate crimes.
Guardian 15
Mass shootings have become a banal fact of death in America. (Last year there were 283 incidents in which four or
more people were shot.) The nation as a whole, meanwhile, has become newly sensitised to racial
violence, with growing activism around police shootings. In April video of a white policeman shooting Walter Scott – an
unarmed African American – eight times in the back in as he ran away in North Charleston, South Carolina, went viral. But the shooting of nine black
church-goers in Charleston (not far from where Scott was killed) by a white gunman in what police are
treating as a “hate crime” marks a doubling down on the nation’s twin pathologies of
racism and guns. Both are deeply rooted in the nation’s history since its founding: neither are
going anywhere soon. The timing of this particular tragedy, given the heightened consciousness and activism around the #BlackLivesMatter movement, provides a particular lens
through which to view this massacre. When Barack Obama won the South Carolina primary in 2008 a huge multiracial crowd gathered in the state capitol of Columbia and
chanted “race doesn’t matter”. With each new well-publicised account of racial violence, be it at the hands of the state or the public, claims that the arrival of a black president
Racism isn’t dead.
signals the arrival of a post-racial era collapses under the weight of its own delusion. We know this because it keeps killing black people.
The fact that Clementa Pinckney, a state senator, was among the dead indicates that nobody is safe. The fact that it took place in a church during a prayer meeting indicates that
nowhere is safe. America does not have a monopoly on racism. But what makes its racism so lethal is the ease with which
people can acquire guns. While the new conversation around race will mean the political response to the fact of this attack will be different, the stale
conversation around gun control means the legislative response to the nature of this attack will remain the same. Nothing will happen. After Adam Lanza shot 20 primary school
children and six adults in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, in 2012 before turning his gun on himself, nothing happened. Seven children and teens are shot dead every day in America
nine victims will join those who perished before them – a sacrifice to the
and nothing happens. So these
blood-soaked pedestal erected around the constitution’s second amendment that gun lobbyists say
guarantees the right of individuals to bear arms. Where guns are concerned this is what passes for American exceptionalism – an 18th century compromise with fatal 21st century
ramifications. For the parishioners of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston nothing will ever be the same again. And for those who have the power to
prevent it happening again, nothing will change.
slightly more likely to see a crime committed than other places, they will reduce
the amount of crime in that location.
That means turn their argument since when we decrease crime we also decrease
predictive policing
Treatment for the mentally ill doesn’t include Suicide Prevention Training
Alana Horowitz Satlin, 9-3-2014, "The Biggest Mental Health Care Problem You Don't
Know About," HuffPost, <span class="skimlinks-
unlinked">https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/03/suicide-
prevention_n_5736316.html</span>
In an op-ed for the Sacramento Bee, Craig Lomax said that they took Linnea to a
hospital where she stayed for several days before doctors felt she had shown enough
progress to be released. Linnea was moved to an outpatient treatment center, but on her
first day of therapy she left and never came back. She was found dead from suicide after
an exhaustive 10-week search. The Lomaxes do not see their personal tragedy as an
isolated incident. Citing the 3,500 deaths by suicide that occur annually in
California, the Lomaxes made one simple request in their op-ed: “We want mental
health professionals to have suicide prevention training.”
2. TURN: Treatment exacerbates issues with the mentally ill - i wouldn’t read this