Students gathered in Anderson Hall on Mar. 1 to work through what Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association (NRA), described as "a debate as ancient as mankind and as fresh as today's newspaper."
LaPierre spoke those words in "The Great UN Gun Debate," a 2004 movie filmed in England that was screened at the event, which was sponsored by Tufts Right to Arms.
According to junior Dan Mencher, treasurer of Tufts Right to Arms, this particular film was selected for its objectivity.
"It wasn't sponsored or hosted by any partisan side," he said.
The resolution the students debated was "Should the United States support the United Nations Treaty that bans [the] private ownership of guns?"
In addition to LaPierre, Rebecca Peters, director of the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), appeared in the film. Peters said that the United States should support the resolution. LaPierre disagreed.
Despite the proposed topic, the debate centered primarily around whether the United States should support a strict resolution, but not an outright ban, on private ownership of guns.
A key disagreement concerned the role of governments. In the film, Peters said that governments should come together to actively restrict the availability of
weapons.
"International treaties are the usual way to deal with weapons," she said. "Guns are the only weapons left outside of international treaties."
An effort by the entire international community is necessary, she said, because "guns do not respect borders. One country's laws can be undermined by another's."
Peters stressed that this reform needs to come from the top and must be structural. "People need democracy to protect them. They do not need guns," she said.
LaPierre objected on the grounds of American rights. "What arrogance leads them [IANSA] to believe they have a better idea than our Bill of Rights?" he asked.
He said that the U.S. government could never agree to a treaty that impedes Second Amendment rights. "No treaty supersedes the authority of the...Constitution," he said.
LaPierre said that this system of rights is the best one possible. "I'm not here to impose upon any other nation the freedoms that we enjoy in the United States," he said. "Though I wish I could."
As such, he said that the most effective role of the government is to prosecute. "We are leading the way in the United States to arm good people [and] prosecute bad people," he said.
He stressed that the solution is not to form treaties. "The problem was enforcing the rules that we had," he said. He cited as an example of how the NRA works to enforce laws through Project Exile.
This "stunningly simple and effective" program creates a mandatory five-year prison sentence for a convicted felon carrying a gun, he said.
Alongside of the disagreement concerning the role of governments, debaters highlighted their differing opinions about the role of guns.
To LaPierre, guns are tools that can often be employed to achieve productive means. He cited self-defense and hunting as two examples.
At one point during the film, LaPierre held up a sign that read, "Should you shoot a rapist before he cuts your throat?" He told Peters, "You disarm the person being attacked by this guy. I don't."
LaPierre based this argument on the rights of the "good" law-abiding citizens, whose rights he said must be respected.
He also cited statistics showing that people are far more likely to be victims of robberies in areas with strict gun control.
In his defense of hunting, LaPierre focused on Peters' previous suggestion of banning certain firearms with a range over 100 yards.
"Your definition of moderate," he said to her, "is the most extreme definition imaginable."
Peters, for her part, spoke about the downsides of small arms proliferation, focusing on its role in conflict zones such as Guatemala.
There, she said, gun wounds are as much of a problem as gun deaths. "Poor families there can never afford to buy a wheelchair," she said.
As to LaPierre's distinction concerning the rights of "good" people, she responded, "Good people sometimes do bad things. There is not a clear distinction between good guys and bad guys in the world."
Guns, she said, are meant expressly to kill. She added that in areas with regulation, deaths dramatically decreased. In one specific year, she said, there were 68 gun deaths in Britain and 11,500 in the U.S.
Peters said that she respected the right to hunt in certain cases, but in instances where such sport would create undue proliferation, she was not sympathetic.
"Take up another sport," she admonished certain hunters.
She also said that there are guns that are suitable for hunting and others that aren't. "You do not need a semi-automatic... to kill a deer," she said.
In a discussion following the film's screening, most viewers sided with LaPierre.
Senior Mike Schilling had problems with Peters' reasoning that guns themselves are accountable.
"People are the ones who are killing people. They can use anything available to them, including their person," he said.
In a vote among viewers, participants came down six to one in favor of rejecting the United Nations proposal banning private gun ownership.
