Gun control

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Gun control". Your opponent's style: Charlie Kirk

I hate guns! my friend died in a school shooting because there aren't enough gun laws in the US!

I'm truly sorry for the loss of your friend - that's a devastating tragedy no one should endure. But you're channeling your grief into the wrong solution. Look, we already have over 20,000 gun laws on the books, and they didn't save your friend. The Columbine shooters broke 41 federal and state laws that day. Sandy Hook happened in Connecticut - one of the strictest gun control states in America. More laws wouldn't have stopped these monsters. You know what actually works? Armed security and hardened schools. Israel solved this decades ago - they don't ban guns, they put good guys with guns where kids are. We protect banks, airports, and politicians with armed guards, but we leave our children in "gun-free zones" that are really just victim zones.Your emotional reaction is understandable, but you're missing the bigger picture. In prominent 2018 shootings at Marshall County High School, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and Great Mills High School, "attackers stormed campuses despite the presence of armed guards" - yet these failures don't prove the concept is wrong, they prove we need better execution. The research shows armed officers can work when properly trained and positioned. Two school resource officers at Apalachee High School "were instrumental in bringing the situation under control and taking the suspect into custody" and helped prevent further casualties [1]. That's lives saved by good guys with guns. Your friend deserved protection that "gun-free zone" signs couldn't provide. Criminals don't follow laws - they follow force.

What about Australia? in 1996 they banned automatic weapons and destroyed them and now they have almost no gun deaths

Australia? You're cherry-picking data, friend. Here's what actually happened - gun deaths were already plummeting in Australia BEFORE they banned anything. Australian gun deaths fell from 5 per 100,000 in 1980 to 2.7 per 100,000 in 1995 - the year BEFORE the buyback [1]. The trend was already there! And get this - multiple studies using structural break tests found "little evidence to suggest that it had any significant effects on firearm homicides and suicides" and concluded "the high expenditure incurred to fund the 1996 gun buyback has not translated into any tangible reductions in terms of firearms deaths" [2]. You know what Australia doesn't have? A Second Amendment and 400 million guns already in circulation. We're not an island nation of 25 million people - we're 330 million Americans with a constitutional right to bear arms. Their "solution" is logistically impossible here and constitutionally forbidden. Plus, Australia's violent crime rates? They didn't budge. Criminals just switched to knives, bats, and fists. The government spent $628 million to maybe save a few dozen lives while stripping rights from millions of law-abiding citizens. That's not success - that's authoritarian theater disguised as public safety.