First is framing

I defend a pragmatic theory of truth; beliefs in

statements are true if believing them is useful for the
ends agent doing so.
A. Truths can never correspond exactly to reality;
conceptions of the world held by agents are mental
events with features that depend on psychological
states. External objects would have to be unmediated by
psychology to correspond. Correspondence renders all
statements incoherent because it tests for the equality
of impossibly unequal things.
B. Pragmatism solves: it tests truth solely according to
what believing would have, regardless of what entities
asserted within the statement abstractly mean. We
subscribe to the notion of measuring time, even though
its not an observable phenomenon, meaning that
concepts are only functional if we find them to be useful.
Time does not really exist but we invented it to
understand other things.
The standard of evaluation is resisting oppression.
This is the most consistent with the ends of the agent;
Pragmatism means we must validate the insight of
oppressed groups. Ethics is divided between ideal and
non-ideal theory ideal theories are abstracted to the

universal while non-ideal theory is grounded in empirical

considerations. Prefer non-ideal theory:
Abstracting from the world makes us detached from the
real world, denying any possibility to understand ethics.
MILLS: 1

A first possible argument might be the simple denial that moral theory should have any concern with making realistic

assumptions about human beings, their capacities, and their behavior

with the ideal,

this

. Ethics is concerned

so it doesnt have to worry about the actual

wouldnt work,

since

of course,

But even for mainstream

ethics

ought is supposed to

imply can [because] the ideal has to be

achievable by humans.

Nor could it seriously be claimed that moral theory is concerned only

with mapping beautiful ideals, not their actual implementation. If any ethicist actually said this, it would be an astonishing abdication of the

classic goal of ethics, and its link with practical reason.

would

then

be

weirdly

[If not] The normative

here

detached from the prescriptive:

this is the good and the rightbut we are not concerned with their actual realization

Even for Plato, a classic example in at least one sense

of an ideal theorist, this was not the case: the Form of the Good was supposed to motivate us, and help philosophers transform society.

Nor could anyone

seriously

say

way to approach ethics

that

ideal theory is a good

because as a matter of fact (not as a conceptual necessity following from

what model or ideal means), the normative here has come close to converging with the descriptive: ideal- as-descriptive-model has
approximated to ideal-as-idealized-model. Obviously, the idreadful and dismaying course of human history has not remotely been a record
of close-to-ideal behavior, but rather of behavior that has usually been quite the polar opposite of the ideal, with oppression and inequitable
treatment of the majority of humanity (whether on grounds of gender, or nationality, or class, or religion, or race) being the norm. So

the argument cannot be that as a matter of

definitional truth, or factual irrelevance, or factual
convergence, ideal

theory is required. The argument has to be, as in the quote from Rawls above, that this is

the best way of doing normative theory, better than all the other contenders. But why on earth should anyone think this? Why should anyone
think that abstaining from theorizing about oppression and its consequences is the best way to bring about an end to oppression? Isnt this, on
the face of it, just completely implausible?

Impact framing

Charles W. Mills, Ideal Theory as Ideology, 2005

A)

Oppression comes first because we must attend to

the structures of powers in society that establish
the rules that determine what knowledge is valid.
However, as an educator and someone who is
considering endorsing a position on the law, you
should establish a space where multiple points of

B)

view .
It is essential that we formulate empowerment
strategies for the oppressed in order to critically
evaluate the power structures that produce other
knowledge claims means that my frameworks
come first Singer writes:

Finally, those who are in positions of power should remember that, as William James remarked, "what we say about reality . . .
depends on the perspective into which we throw it." n79 Wells, Radin, Minow, and Spelman remind us that frameworks of analysis
do matter. n80 We should therefore hesitate to presume agreement on fundamental questions of value. Rather, we should
recognize conflict among social groups and be attentive to multiple perspectives. As Radin notes, "we must realize that another
perspective is always possible." n81 Instead of conceptualizing society as one big unit, we should think of society as composed of

overlapping communities with differing experiences. n82In particular,

[those]

persons in positions of

it is essential for

[in] power to consider "the

standpoint of people who have themselves

been

dominated and [*1841]

oppressed

." n83 These perspectives are the ones that are most likely

to be excluded from dominant discourses. As Radin notes, "What leads some pragmatists into complacency and over-respect for the
status quo is partly the failure to ask, 'Who is "we"?'" n84 The failure to attend to the perspective of the oppressed is one of what
Hilary Putnam calls "immunizing strategies" by which "the rationales of oppression . . . can be protected from criticism." n85 Minow
and Spelman suggest ongoing criticism of "apparently neutral and universal rules" that in fact implement a worldview that serves
historically "privileged, white, Christian, able-bodied, heterosexual adult men . . . ." n86To combat the conservative nature of

commonsense judgments,

the

we must

subject those judgments to critical evaluation by

focus on
ing

underlying power structures that form the

context within which those judgments are

made.

When we ask whether a social or legal practice works, we must ask ourselves, "works for whom?" Who benefits

and who loses from existing political, economic, and legal structures?

on social hierarchies,

This requires a focus

including, among others, those of gender, race, sexual orientation, and

class. n87Sensitivity to "context" does not guarantee moral success; it is still necessary to choose whose context will be made to

matter.

Patterns of exclusion are oppressive both

in themselves and because they inhibit the

ability of all persons to see what is there.

If we

understand knowledge and value as social creations, it becomes clear that one cannot "know" by oneself. n88 Existing

structures of power
peoples

systematically

exclude oppressed

from helping to shape the world. At the same time, oppressed peoples have developed a variety of

strategies for community empowerment. If

the persons

pragmatism

and goods

is to work, it

must help

rumbling in the background

to break free.
The role of the ballot and judge is to vote for the better debater who best methodologically resists oppression

I will defend psychoanalysis as a liberation strategy for

the oppressed by analyzing and critiquing the ideological
motivations behind actions to determine new solutions;
comes before we can envision alternatives
Garca2
The aim of psychoanalysis is not, therefore,

that the analisand should be able to accept his [or her]

resignation / renouncing as a condition to access desire. Rather than assuming this lack, the
subject would have to assume the lack of the big Other - which, as iek points out, is
incomparably more unbearable. As the big Other is the (presu)position of an immaterial and ideal
order, its (libidinal) function is to guarantee the ultimate meaning and consistency of the subjects
experience. This withdrawal with respect to the big Other is not a sacrifice - because sacrifice is
always directed towards the Other-, but an act of abandonment that sacrifices the very sacrifice
(1994: 79). As a consequence,

the

ultimate

aim of ideological

2 & Snchez, 8 Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Universidad de Costa Rica AND Professor, Department of Linguistics,
Universidad de Costa Rica (George I. and Carlos Guillermo Aguilar, Psychoanalysis and politics: the theory of ideology in Slavoj iek,
International Journal of iek Studies, Vol. 2, No. 3, 9, http://zizekstudies.org/index.php/ijzs/article/viewFile/149/243)//SY *** modified for
gender language

critique is to place the

historical

subject

face to face with the possibility of

(barred, of course)

its own action

confronting the Other , so far considered to be full and complete.

preparing] for the acceptance of a totalitarian symbolic order

based on
rupture

Lacanian

with

the

generated by ideological fantasy [30]..

, the

ideological

psychoanalysis
statu

s quo

In this way,

Far [from

critique
would be a propedeutics for the

; it would first of all attempt to confront the trauma

visualising the conflict

and assuming it is a fundamental part for

breaking from ideology.

Hence, according to iek, the Left must

preserve the historical traces of all the traumas, dreams and catastrophes that the prevailing end
of history ideology would prefer to obliterate; it must become a live monument, so that while the
Left remains, those traumas remain marked.

nostalgic love affair with the past,

This

attitude, far

is the only

distance from the present, a distance that allows us to

from confining the Left to a

possible

way to

take a

discern the signs

[of] the New (1998: 352-353).

The res and topic lit should be evaluated as a

cultural or symbolic question first
Kahan
Guns,
they

are

historians and sociologists tell us,

also

symbols

are not just "weapons, [or] pieces of sporting equipment";

"positively or negatively

Boone, the Civil War, the elemental lifestyles [of] the frontier

associated with

, war

in general,

crime,

Daniel

masculinity

in the abstract, adventure,

slavery or freedom.
feels

about gun control

civic responsibility

It stands to reason, then, that

will depend

a lot

or irresponsibility,

[and]

how [one]

an individual

on the social

meanings that she thinks guns and gun

control express,
she believes they impose

and

not just on

the

consequences

As one southern Democratic senator recently put it, the gun debate is "about values"-"about who

you are and who you aren't." Or in the even more pithy formulation of another group of politically minded commentators, "It's the

Culture, Stupid!"' This view, if correct, has important practical implications for the gun debate.

individuals adopt one position

what guns mean rather than

If

or another

what guns

because of

do,

then

empirical data are unlikely to have much

effect

on the gun debate.

academics and others

Instead of continuing to focus[ing] on the consequences of various types of regulation,

[those]who want to help resolve the

gun

controversy should dedicate themselves to

identifying

with as much precision as possible the

animate this dispute, and

cultural visions that

to

formulating

appropriate

strategies for enabling those visions to be

expressively

reconciled in law

And, the AFFs cultural investigation of our relationship

with handguns comes before the implementation debate
because of the framing in the AC.

Next is the offense

The militaristic gun culture has normalized
violence, alienating those considered other;
mass shootings have become routine. Warfare
has smothered every ethical thought and shapes
politics.
Giroux3
Nine people were killed and seven wounded recently in a mass shooting at a community college in Roseburg, Oregon. Such

shootings
are
symptomatic of society engulfed in , militarism,
and
disdain for
life.
are more than another tragic expression of unchecked violence in the United States; they
a

a survival-of-the-fittest ethos

fear

a growing

human

Sadly, this shooting is not an

isolated incident. Over 270 mass shootings have taken place in the United States this year alone, proving once again that the economic,

conditions that underlie

addressed

political and social

being

such

violence are not

. To read more articles by Henry A. Giroux and other authors in the Public Intellectual Project, click here. In

the United States, calls for liberal, Band-Aid reforms do not work in the face of the carnage taking place. "The United States sees an average of
92 gun deaths per day - and more preschoolers are shot dead each year than police officers are killed in the line of duty." (1) Mass violence in
the United States has to be understood within a larger construction of the totality of the forces that produce it. Focusing merely on the more
dramatic shootings misses the extent of the needless violence and murders that are taking place daily. US politicians now attempt to govern
the effects of systemic violence while ignoring its underlying causes. State repression, unbridled self-interest, an empty consumerist ethos and

war-like values have

organiz[ed]
[the]
US
producing indifference to
good,
compassion,
for others and equality.
become the

society,

ing principles of

an

the common

a concern

As the public collapses into

the individualized values of a banal consumer culture and the lure of private obsessions, US society flirts with forms of irrationality that are at
the heart of everyday aggression and the withering of public life. US society is driven by unrestrained market values in which economic actions
and financial exchanges are divorced from social costs, further undermining any sense of social responsibility. In addition, a wasteful, giant

consumption
of violence as entertainment and celebration of
gun culture, normalizes everyday violence
waged against
others
considered disposable.
military-industrial-surveillance complex fueled by the war on terror, along with the United States' endless
its

pervasive

the

Black youth, immigrants, children fed into the school-to-prison pipeline and

US politicians now attempt to govern the effects of systemic violence while

ignoring its underlying causes. Under such circumstances, a society saturated in violence gains credence when its political leaders have given
up on the notion of the common good, social justice and equality, all of which appear to have become relics of history in the United States. In
the face of mass shootings, the public relations disimagination machine goes into overdrive claiming that guns are not the problem, and that
the causes of such violence can be largely attributed to people living with mentally illness. When in actuality, as two Vanderbilt University
researchers, Dr. Jonathan Metzl and Kenneth T. MacLeish, publishing in the American Journal of Public Health, observed that: Fewer than 6
percent of the 120,000 gun-related killings in the United States between 2001 and 2010 were perpetrated by people diagnosed with mental
illness. Our research finds that across the board, the mentally ill are 60 to 120 percent more likely than the average person to be the victims of
violent crime rather than the perpetrators.... There are 32,000 gun deaths in the United States on average every year, and people are far more
likely to be shot by relatives, friends or acquaintances than they are by lone violent psychopaths. (2) It may not be an exaggeration to claim
that the US government has blood on its hands because of the refusal of Congress to rein in a gun lobby that produces a growing militarism
that sanctions a love affair with the unbridled corporate institutions, financial interests and mass-produced cultures of violence. The Oregon
community college shooting is the 41st school shooting this year while there have been 142 incidents of violence on school properties since
2012. Yet, the violence continues unchecked, all the while legitimated by the cowardly acts of politicians who refuse to enact legislation to
curb the proliferation of guns or support measures as elementary as background checks - which 88 percent of the American people support -

3 Giroux, Henry A. Murder, Incorporated: Guns and the Growing Culture of Violence in the US. Truth-Out. October 7, 2015.

or for that matter, ban large-capacity ammunition magazines and assault rifles. In part, this cowardly refusal on the part of politicians is due to
the fact that gun lobbyists pour huge amounts of money into the campaigns of politicians who support their interests. For example, in 2015,
the gun lobby spent $5,697,429 while those supporting gun control paid out $867,601. In a New York Times op-ed, Gabrielle Giffords pointed
out that the National Rifle Association (NRA) in the 2012 election cycle "spent around $25 million on contributions, lobbying and outside
spending."(3) Outside money does more than corrupt politics; it is also responsible for people being shot and killed. The culture of violence
cannot be abstracted from the business of violence. Many

violence [and].
weaponry

Americans are obsessed with

They not only own nearly 300 million firearms, but also have a love affair with powerful

such as 9mm Glock semiautomatic pistols and AR-15 assault rifles. Collective anger, frustration, fear and

resentment increasingly characterize a society in which people are out of work, young people cannot imagine a decent future, everyday
behaviors are criminalized, inequality in wealth and income are soaring and the police are viewed as occupying armies. This is not only a

Fear has
by the

recipe for both random violence and mass shootings; it makes such acts appear routine and commonplace.

become a
strategy used
gun industry
public relations

by the

not only

national security state but also

. When you live in a country in which you are constantly bombarded by the assumption that the

hate,
against
gun control advocates
reinforc[es]
the belief that gun ownership is the only notion of
safety
government is the enemy of democracy and you are told that nobody can be trusted, and the discourse of
Black youth, immigrants and

particularly

, spews out daily from

thousands of conservative radio stations and major TV networks, a climate of fear engulfs the country

ing

in which people can believe in order to live as free human beings. Under such circumstances, genuine fears and concerns for

safety are undermined. These include the fear of poverty, lack of meaningful employment, the absence of decent health care, poor schools,
police violence and the militarization of society, all of which further legitimate and fuel the machinery of insecurity, violence and death. Fear
degenerates into willful ignorance while any semblance of rationality is erased, especially around the logic of gun control. As Adam Gopnik
observes: Gun control ends gun violence as surely an antibiotics end bacterial infections, as surely as vaccines end childhood measles - not
perfectly and in every case, but overwhelmingly and everywhere that it's been taken seriously and tried at length. These lives can be saved.
Kids continue to die en masse because one political party won't allow that to change, and the party won't allow it to change because of the
irrational and often paranoid fixations that make the massacre of students and children an acceptable cost of fetishizing guns. (4) President
Obama is right in stating that the

violence

we see in the United States is "a political choice we make that allows this to

happen." While taking aim at the gun lobby, especially the NRA, what Obama fails to address is that extreme violence is systemic in US
society,

has become the foundation of politics

and must be understood

within a broader historical, economic, cultural and political context. To be precise, politics has become an extension of violence driven by a
culture of fear, cruelty and hatred legitimated by the politicians bought and sold by the gun lobby and other related militaristic interests.
Moreover, violence is now treated as a sport, a pleasure-producing form of commerce, a source of major profits for the defense industries and
a corrosive influence upon US democracy. And as such it is an expression of a deeper political and ethical corruption in US society. As Rich
Broderick insists, US society "embraces a soulless free-market idolatry in which the value of everything, including human beings, is determined
by the bottom line" and in doing so this market fundamentalism and its theater of cruelty and greed perpetuate a spectacle of violence fed by
an echo chamber "of paranoia, racism, and apocalyptic fantasies rampant in the gun culture." (5) The lesson here is that the culture of
violence cannot be abstracted from the business of violence. Murdering children in schools, the streets, in jails, detention centers and other
places increasingly deemed unsafe has become something of a national pastime. One wonders how many innocent children have to die in the
United States before it becomes clear that the

industry

revenue made by the

gun
fuel[s] a
bloodbath

, with a $1.5 billion profit, are

$13.5 billion

ing

national

by using lobbyists to

pay off politicians, wage a mammoth propaganda campaign and induct young children into the culture of violence. (6) What is clear is that as
more guns are on the streets and in the hands of people a savage killing machine is unleashed on those who are largely poor, Black and

widespread availability of guns is the

reason for
killing[s]
vulnerable. The

the shooting and

of children and adults in Chicago, Boston, Ferguson, New York City and

in other major cities. The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence reports that "in 2010, guns took the lives of 31,076 Americans in homicides,
suicides and unintentional shootings. This is the equivalent of more than 85 deaths each day and more than three deaths each hour. [In
addition], 73,505 Americans were treated in hospital emergency departments for non-fatal gunshot wounds in 2010." (7) And the toll of gun
violence on young people is truly heartbreaking with almost 30,000 young people killed in a 10-year period, which amounts "to nearly 3,000
kids shot to death in a typical year."(8) According to a Carnegie-Knight News21 program investigation, For every US soldier killed in
Afghanistan during 11 years of war, at least 13 children were shot and killed in the United States. More than 450 kids didn't make it to
kindergarten. Another 2,700 or more were killed by a firearm before they could sit behind the wheel of a car. Every day, on average, seven
children were shot dead. A News21 investigation of child and youth deaths in the United States between 2002 and 2012 found that at least
28,000 children and teens 19-years-old and younger were killed with guns. Teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 made up over two-thirds
of all youth gun deaths in the United States. (9) Even worse, the firearms industry is pouring millions into recruiting and educational
campaigns designed to both expose children to guns at an early age and to recruit them as lifelong gun enthusiasts. Reporting on such efforts

for The New York Times, Mike McIntire writes:

The industry

's strategies include giving firearms, ammunition and cash to

youth groups; weakening state restrictions on hunting by young children; marketing an affordable military-style rifle for "junior shooters" and

sponsor[es]

ing semiautomatic

-handgun[s]

competitions for youths; and developing a target-

shooting video game[s] that promotes brand-name weapons, with links to the Web sites of their makers.... Newer initiatives by other
organizations go further,
hand

guns

seeking to introduce children to

high-powered rifles and

while invoking the same rationale of those older, more traditional programs: that firearms can teach "life skills" like

responsibility, ethics and citizenship. (10) As the United States moves from a welfare state to a warfare state, state violence becomes
normalized. The United States' moral compass and its highest democratic ideals have begun to wither, and the institutions that were once
designed to help people now serve to largely suppress them. Gun laws, social responsibility and a government responsive to its people matter.
We must end the dominance of gun lobbyists, the reign of money-controlled politics, the proliferation of high levels of violence in popular
culture and the ongoing militarization of US society. At the same time, it is crucial, as many in the movement for Black lives have stated, that
we refuse to endorse the kind of gun control that criminalizes young people of color. Gun violence in the United States is inextricably tied to
economic violence as when hedge fund managers invest heavily in companies that make high-powered automatic rifles, 44-40 Colt revolvers,
laser scopes for semiautomatic handguns and expanded magazine clips. (11) The same mentality that trades in profits at the expense of
human life gives the United States the shameful title of being the world's largest arms exporter. According to the Stockholm International
Peace Research Institute, "Washington sold 31% of all global imports during the 2010-2014 period."(12) This epidemic of violence connects the
spreading of violence abroad with the violence waged at home. It also points to the violence reproduced by politicians who would rather
support the military-industrial-gun complex and arms industries than address the most basic needs and social problems faced by Americans.
Rather than arming people with more guns, criminalizing every aspect of social behavior, militarizing the police and allowing the gun lobby to
sanction putting semiautomatic weapons in the hands of children and adults, the most immediate action that can be taken is to institute
effective gun control laws. As Bernardine Dohrn has argued: We want gun control that sanctions manufacturers, distributors and adults who
place, and profit from, deadly weapons in the possession of youth. We want military-style weaponry banned. We want smaller schools with
nurses and social workers, librarians and parent volunteers - all of which are shown to contribute to less disruption and less violence. Let's
promote gun-control provisions and regulations that enhance teaching and learning as well as justice and safety for children, not those that
will further incarcerate, punish and demonize young people of color. We've been there before. (13) And Dohrn's suggestions would be only the
beginning of real reform, one that goes right to the heart of eliminating the violence at the core of US society. The United States has become a
society that is indifferent to the welfare of its citizens, as the drive for profits has replaced any vestige of social and moral responsibility.
Violence has arisen from the breakdown of public space, the erasure of public goods and a growing disdain for the common good. Gratuitous
violence is no longer merely a sport or form of entertainment; it has become central to a society that trades on fear and fetishizes hyperviolent
and punitive practices and social relations. Brutal, masculine authority now rules US society and wages a war against women's reproductive
rights, civil liberties, poor Black and Brown youth and Mexican immigrants. When

organizing principle [and]

begins to unravel

violence becomes an
democracy

of society, the fabric of a

, suggesting that the United States is at war with itself. When politicians refuse out of narrow

self and financial interests to confront the conditions that create such violence, they have blood on their hands.

Private ownership of handguns fosters violence and

invokes individuals to dehumanize those who appear to
be threatening. Affirm to deconstruct the symbol of
handgun ownership.
Trivago.

Franco V. Trivingo Guns and Virtue: The Virtue Ethical Case Against Gun Carrying Public

Affairs Quarterly Volume 27 Number 4 10/2013 // LHP JN

For example, a person could not flourish if everyone she knew used her for profit, or if she lived in a deeply repressive and sexist society.56
What effect does cultivating the willingness to use a gun in self-defense have on one's attitude toward other people, most of whom will not in
fact be criminals? As much research has demonstrated, the willingness to kill is enabled by a number of mechanisms that serve to dehumanize

the potential target." The habit of

carrying a gun

may

involve[s]

non-conscious

representations of a generic "criminal" as evil

subhuman. Such

repeated dehumanization

inhibit[s]

ing the development of

and/or

may have deleterious effects on one's character by

virtuous character

traits, enabling the development of

vicious character traits, and adversely affect-ing moral deliberation and perception. This dehumanization can be seen as operative in two

ways. First, the

discourse surrounding justification for gun

carrying refers to criminals

"

subhuman threats

," not as individual moral subjects, but

as

to the safety of moral agents. As I note above, these attitudes are likely to be

mediated by social identities

, that is, one will be more likely to dehumanize African

Americans. Thus, the "criminal" is likely to have a certain "look." Consider Lott's description of what criminals are like: To put it bluntly,
criminals are not typical citizens. As is well known, young males from their mid-teens to mid-thirties commit a disproportionate share of crime,
but even this categorization can be substantially narrowed. We know that criminals tend to have low IQs as well as atypical personalities. For
ex-ample, delinquents generally tend to be more 'assertive, unafraid, aggressive, uncontrolled, unconventional, extroverted and poorly
socialized'. . . Other evidence indicates that criminals tend to be more impulsive and put relatively little weight on future events. Finally, we
cannot ignore the unfortunate fact that crime (particularly violent crime and especially murder) is disproportionately committed against blacks
by blacks." This picture assimilates criminals and psychopaths, who lack empathy and as a matter of fact have no qualms about harming other
humans.59 The criminal is thus so deeply different and "other" that heand it is almost always a "he"is simply not afforded the same moral
consideration as "regular" humans. Collins claims that this picture of the criminal, while picking up on certain statistically relevant correlations,

is grossly overdrawn and unhelpful for predicting violence f Second, in order

be effective, one must

be willingor think one is willingto

should it become necessary. In On Killing, Grossman argues that successfully

kill

for handgun[s]
training

use
someone

deadly

to

carrying

to

force

become willing to

involves several distancing mechanisms, all of which involve[s] dehumanizing the potential target[s].6' The distancing mechanisms

include "cultural distance, such as racial and ethnic differences"; "moral distance, which takes into consideration the kind of intense belief in
moral superiority"; and "social distance, which considers the impact of practice in thinking of a particular class as less than human.-62 These
distancing mechanisms are meant to overcome our strong resistance to serious violence, and this resistance is a significant feature of our

moral psychological makeup.63 In short,

enable killing

the psychological mechanisms that

bypass the resistance

the potential "target:.

by dehumanizing

, in one way or another,

In order to become willing to kill another human beingeven in self-defense

it is

psychologically enabling to see that person as

or

non-human

sub

.64 The core point here is that to the extent that one is successful, on one's own, at distancing oneself from

others in preparing to commit serious violence, one is thereby and to that extent morally harming oneself. One does so precisely by
compromising one's own ability to recognize the humanity in others, thereby undermining one's capacity for empathic concern. A reduced
capacity for empathic concern will affect all sorts of other-regarding virtues, since they depend on perceiving the other as a fellow human. One
may become callous and insensitive, when confronted with the suffering of these others; one may become cruel and malicious in what one
says about them and hopes for them; one may become spiteful and vindic-tive when confronted with wrongdoing that "they" have committed.
Conversely, several virtuous character traits may become harder to develop and impossible to fully realize: compassion, sympathy,
benevolence, and kindness come to mind. A practiced attitude of dehumanization toward a certain set of people, the violent criminals,
whoever one imagines them to be, is likely to have deleterious effects on moral deliberation and moral perception, which may end up fostering
vicious character traits and inhibiting the development of virtuous character traits. In short, one will not be able to afford others the proper
amount of moral consideration. To recognize basic human dignity from a virtue ethical perspective means that one affords others due
consideration in one's moral outlook and deliberations about what to do. One must perceive others and their goals, values, and ideals as
morally relevant and salient features of one's own moral situation. One needs to see them as having some basic moral value." The deleterious

effects of gun carrying [are]

on moral deliberation and moral perception can be seen as

operative on two levels. First, such

dehumanization

cannot be done with sufficient fineness of grain to avoid

dehumanizing those who are only superficially similar to the violent criminals. Since

"criminal" is
an overly broad way,

with

likely to be

one's notion of the

mediated by social identity

and thus drawn in

one will develop bad habits of deliberation

respect to

those who may "look like

" one of

"

the

criminals."

These mechanisms are also likely to be operative at the non-conscious level, that is, one may not be aware that one is, in moral deliberation,
implicitly denying the humanity of those who are only superficially similar to the criminal. One's moral perception may be affected in such a
way that one simply fails to see certain groups of people as human moral agents. Second, even if one's notion of the criminal is accurate and

somehow manages to avoid[s] undue generalization, it is clear that the criminal deserves some moral consideration

. The

dehumanization that enables violence would

far in the

den[y]

ial of

seem to go too

moral consideration to the criminal.

This

may be manifested in expressed attitudes of indifference to what happens to criminals, how they are or have been treated, or, as we have
seen, the belief that they ought to be treated more harshly or even killed.

Guns do not make us free they just make subjects more

easily managed and controlled by the sovereign Carlson
There is more to states than sovereign power: as Foucault maintains in his analyses of disciplinary power
and governmentality, states are also the effect of governance practices that do not produce fear
and obedience as much as shape desire and conduct. Shorthanded by Foucault as the conduct of

governmentality is a form of power that

coordinates and regulates whole populations and their
statistical qualities by cultivating subjective
capacities , rather than by instilling fear and terror into individuals (as per sovereign power) or
conduct,

disciplining them (as under disciplinary power) (Foucault, 2009: 11). As Garland (1997: 175) summarizes,

government is not, then , the suppression of individual

sovereignty, but rather the cultivation of that
subjectivity in specific forms, aligned to specific
government aims . While Foucault notes that governmentality emerged historically

later than sovereignty (and after disciplinarity), these rationalities of power do not represent a series of
successive elements, the appearance of the new causing the earlier one to disappear (Foucault, 2009: 8).
They are reconfigured alongside, against and through one another. This has two theoretical consequences.
First, the state is not simply defined by one form of power or the other. Second, no form of power is
simplistically monopolized by the state. This is demonstrated by scholars who have studied how a variety
of phenomena from the erosion of the public sphere to global capitalism to private securityresult in
new configurations of re-feudalization (Habermas, 1991) and lateral sovereignties that form a patchwork
within and beyond traditional nation-states (Comaroff and Comaroff, 2006). Given that gun users wield
lethal force legitimately, that is, within the legal confines outlined by the state, Foucaults insistence that

governmentality and disciplinarity hang

together in historically contextual, mutually co-constitutive
configurations is useful for unpacking gun-toters
and their relation to the state. In participating in sovereign power,
they are not breaking free from the state as
much as (re)constituting new relations of
sovereign subjection, with governmentality working through the

sovereign power,

technology of sovereign power. Thus, the very fact that dozens of US state-level governments sanction
gun use through Stand Your Ground laws and concealed carry laws implies that armed citizens are not

Rather than a return to

pure rights, gun rights can be read, as argued above ,
as an example of responsibilization of state
power and, by extension, as a conduct of conduct or governmentality

simply usurping sovereignty from the state.

(Foucault, 2009, 2010). As Garland notes of responsibilization in high-crime societies, the state works
through civil society and not upon it (2000: 348, emphases in original), indirectly managing crime. Indeed,

[it] leaves the centralized

state machine more powerful than before , with an
extended capacity for action and influence . At the same

where it works the responsibilization strategy

time, however, this strategy serves to erode the notion of the state as the publics

gun advocates
may distinguish themselves as sovereign citizens, they might be bettered
conceptualized as sovereign subjects, still
constituted by forms of power enacted on them
and through them rather than rights emanating
naturally from them . While Zimmerman and Pistorius may have made the
representative and primary protector. (Garland, 1996: 454) While

sovereign call to use lethal force to distinguish Trayvon Martin and Reeva Steenkamp as enemies
(Schmitt, 2006), both are subject to the states recognition of their actions as legitimate, as their capacity
to exercise their sovereign rights is curtailed by the states willingness to recognize those rights according
to law and as interpreted by the courts. Sovereign power thus operates at once as everyday practice and
institutional capacity, straddling definitions that would partition power into possessed and practiced
aspects.

All alts will fail without getting rid of handguns; This

outweighs-absent challenging this ideology, gun control
will recreate the hierarchy, which governmentally kills all
other alternatives, so we have to account for it first

because it renders agents calculable and therefore

exploitable.
2. Private ownership of handguns symbolize
patriarchy and homophobia which is violent
towards the LGBTQ+ community
Braman4
guns are thought to
resonate
self- sufficiency
a
token of masculinity; the
custom of awarding an adolescent boy his "first
gun" has been characterized as
arrival at manhood As the tools of
the
military
guns are
appeal
to individuals who hold
condemnatory attitudes toward social
nonconformists
guns
signify
patriarchy and
homophobia
a gun
express[es] distrust of
others:
"Every handgun owned
is an implicit
declaration of war on one's neighbor
Used to wrest national independence and to tame the western frontier,

as symbols of "honor," "courage," "chivalry," and "individual

same associations also make gun possession

."' ; These

n evocative

"the bar mitzvah of the rural WASP,"" a "veritable

rite[] of passage that certifie [s] [his]

trade for both the

. ''38

and the police,

also emblems of state authority, increasing the

[ing] of owning them

harshly

and law breakers."' But inverting these meanings, other individuals find

Just as they

repugnant.

traditionally masculine virtues to some citizens, so too guns signify

to others.0 While some see the decision to own

others see it as

ing

as expressing an attitude of self- reliance,

and indifference toward

in America

.""' For those who fear guns, the

historical reference points are not the American Revolution or the settling of the frontier, but the post-bellum period, in which the privilege of
owning guns in the South was reserved to whites, and the 1960s, when gun-wielding assassins killed Medgar Evans, John and Robert Kennedy,
and Martin Luther King, Jr. To these citizens, guns are emblems not of legitimate state authority, but of racism and reaction."' From the
historical and ethnographic literature, one can infer not only that the gun control controversy is culturally grounded, but that the cultural fault
lines that divide Americans on this issue overlap sub- stantially with the ones featured in the cultural theory of risk. The association of guns
with traditional gender roles and with state authority should make gun control anathema to individuals of a relatively hier- archical orientation.

gun control
gender and racial equality
Those of an egalitarian orientation, in contrast, should support

as a means of

affirm[s]

ing

. Persons of a relatively individualist orientation should op- pose gun

control, which they are likely to see as denigrating the ideal of individual self-reliance. By the same token, individuals who are less inclined
toward individualism should favoi gun control in order to

with,

express[es]
, solidarity
fellow citizens

and collective responsibility for the well-being of their

trust in

. These are the hypotheses that

we decided to test.

Impacting: The role of the ballot is to reject violent

ideologies and practices
4

. Kahan, Dan M. & Braman, Donald. More Statistics, Less persuasion: A Cultural Theory of Gun-Risk Perceptions. University of Pennsylvania Law Review. April 2003.

The aff is a representational issuethe framing we use to

discuss militarism is important because it shapes the way
we make policies and interact with the world.
Gay5
Many times the first step in reducing linguistic violence is to simply refrain from the use of offensive and oppressive terms. However, just

Nonviolent
, can be negative or positive.

because linguistic violence is not being used, a genuinely pacific discourse is not necessarily present.

discourse,

like the condition of peace

"Negative peace" refers to the temporary absence of actual war or the lull between wars, while "positive peace" refers to the negation of war
and the presence of justice. The pacific discourse that is analogous to negative peace can actually perpetuate injustice. Broadcasters in local
and national news may altogether avoid using terms like "dyke" or "fag" or even "homosexual," but they and their audiences can remain
homophobic even when the language of lesbian and gay pride is used. A government may cease referring to a particular nation as "a rogue

When
prejudices remain unspoken
their
detection and eradication are made even more
difficult
state," but public and private attitudes may continue to foster prejudice toward this nation and its inhabitants.
, at least in public thrums,

. Of course, we need to find ways to restrain hate speech in order to at least stop linguistic attacks in the public arena.

Likewise, we need to find ways to restrain armed conflicts and hostile name calling directed against an adversary of the state. However, even
if avoidance of linguistic violence is necessary, it is not sufficient. Those who bite their tongues to comply with the demands of political
correctness are often ready to lash out vitriolic epithets when these constraints are removed. Thus, the practice of

linguistic
marks

nonviolence
lull reliance on linguistic violence
repression of language and
behavior that expresses these attitudes builds up
pressure
Pacific
discourse that is analogous to positive peace
facilitates
the move from a lull in the
occurrence of violence to its negation.
establishment of
pacific discourse
requires transformation of cultures oriented to
violence
requires
Efforts to establish
positive
peace
reduce cultural violence.
in which
emancipation,
are not
restricted on
race, gender, class, or
sexual orientation
is more like negative peace when the absence of hurtful or harmful terminology merely

in

or a shift of its use from the public to the

private sphere. The merely public or merely formal

that can erupt in subsequent outbursts of linguistic violence and physical violence.

and reflects

The

a genuinely

peace

that is analogous to positive

and war. It also

a commitment to the active pursuit of domestic and global justice.

a practice of linguistic nonviolence analogous to

are part of a larger struggle to

quest for societies

They advance the

human

dignity, and respect

the basis of irrelevant factors like

.

Academic spaces like debate are uniquely key for

military indoctrination; vote aff to decrease violence
in the debate space
5 William C. Gay, Professor of Philosophy at University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 1998 (The Practice of Linguistic NonViolence, Peace Review, Volume 10, Issue 4, December, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Academic Search Elite)

Giroux6 2
Schools represent one of the most serious public spheres to
come under the influence of military culture and values. Zerotolerance policies turn public schools into prison-like institutions, as students' rights increasingly
diminish under the onslaught of new disciplinary measures. Students in many schools, especially those
in poor urban areas, are routinely searched, frisked, subjected to involuntary drug [End Page 127] tests,
maced, and carted off to jail. Elissa Gootman in a 2004 report on schools in New York City claims that
"In some places, schools are resorting to zero-tolerance policies that put students in handcuffs for dress

educators turn over their responsibility for school safety to

the new security culture in public schools has turned
them into "learning prisons," most evident in the ways in which schools are being
code violations" (C14). As
the police,

"reformed" through the addition of armed guards, barbed-wired security fences, and lock-down drills
(Chaddock 15). In 2003, the police in Goose Creek, South Carolina, conducted an early morning drugsweep at Stratford High School. When the officers arrived, they drew guns on students, handcuffed
them, and made them kneel facing the wall (Lewin A16). No drugs were found in the raid. Though this
incident was aired on the national news, there was barely any protest from the public. It gets worse.
Some schools are actually using sting operations in which undercover agents pretend to be students in
order to catch young people suspected of selling drugs or committing any one of a number of school
infractions. The consequences of such actions are far reaching. As Randall Beger points out:
Opponents of school-based sting operations say they not only create a climate of mistrust between
students and police, but they also put innocent students at risk of wrongful arrest due to faulty tips and
overzealous police work. When asked about his role in a recent undercover probe at a high school near
Atlanta, a young-looking police officer who attended classes and went to parties with students replied:
"I knew I had to fit in, make kids trust me and then turn around and take them to jail." (124) The
militarization of public high schools has become so commonplace that even in the face of the most
flagrant disregard for children's rights, such acts are justified by both administrators and the public on
the grounds that they keep kids safe. In Biloxi, Mississippi, surveillance cameras have been installed in
all of its 500 classrooms. The school's administrators call this "school reform," but none of them have
examined the implications of what they are teaching kids who are put under constant surveillance. The
not-so-hidden curriculum here is that kids can't be trusted and that their rights are not worth
protecting. At the same time, students

are being educated to passively

accept military sanctioned practices organized around
maintaining control, surveillance, and unquestioned authority, all conditions
central to a police state and proto-fascism.

6 6 (Henry A. The Emerging Authoritarianism in the United States: Political Culture Under the Bush/Chaney Administration Henry A. Giroux the
Global TV Network Chair in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster U symploke 14.1/2 (2006) 98-151) TBC 7/9/10

First, Theory is an RVI for the aff if I win no

abuse or offense to a counter-interp, I win the
round.
a) Time Skew - theory moots the entirety of the
aff, and exacerbates the 13-7 time skew and 7.3%
neg side bias7. The 6-minute 2NR means they can
go all in on substance and theory, giving the aff
no chance to cover every layer in the 2A.
b) Reciprocity- they have more qualitative routes
to the ballot. They can win substance or theory,
whereas I have to win both in order to win. Neg
always gets bidirectional theory, whereas the aff
speaks in the dark so they have a structural
advantage.
c) Education disincentivizes theory for strategic
reasons and promotes substantive discussion
either the debate collapses to theory and no
education anyways, or theory is kicked and
theres a huge deficit to topical discussion.
Second, on T, drop the arg and re-evaluate my
offense underneath the text of the resolution (a)
the aff speaks in the dark while the neg is
reactive and has the ability to read bidirectional T
while I dont outweighs on fairness because the
neg has a structural advantage over the aff on
theory debaters (b) it ensures that the neg only
reads T when there is real abuse rather than just
as a no-risk issue.

7 Methodology at request.

Third, on neg theory and T, use a reasonability

paradigm with a bright line of in-round structural
abuse defined as the denial of link turn ground
(a) there are multiple legitimate interpretations of
the topic I have to take a stance in the 1AC on
one bidirectional issue, reasonability solves
because it limits the neg from reading the other
side of bidirectional T (b) any other form of abuse
is subjectively good or bad i.e. some people think
plans are good or bad, however, structural abuse
creates tangible abuse and (c) substance skews
are irresolvable due to outside factors like
coaching, more prep, etc.