I did my persuasive final speech on concealed carry. The 2A really is a better speech for persuasion instead of information--you can throw in questions and stats to make people think, not just loose even the casual anti's interest right at the start.
My trick was to intentionally use stats from the Brady campaign and Violence Policy Center (I think that's it) agency. These are about as anti-gun as it gets. I stated the stats, looked right at the couple sneering faces, and announced "These are generous figures--they're from the groups
demanding an all-out ban. And see how they're still minor compared to drowning in swimming pools? Even the VPC records that out of X-million licenses, there are only Y number of deaths by CCW carriers last year. There are more people in this room. Also note 'death', not 'murder'--these include foiled muggings and carjackings, and the VPC even threw in home invasion that just happened to be at a CCW holder's house."
That got me good grades from most of the sneering faces, and even the ones that didn't change their thinking looked more confused than hostile, and couldn't say I didn't get the facts. They just weren't to be swayed.
Just stating facts doesn't work in a debate or speech class. After all, facts are only fact if they're on your side.
EDIT: That site is at
http://www.vpc.org/ccwkillers.htm and will link to other skewed statistics. Please do keep in mind that the VPC will often leave out when one of the 'killers' was held at knife point, carjacked, woken in the middle of the night, and that a few of the quoted officers, IIRC, were committing criminal acts at the time, and one was apparently an 'unannounced entry'. Also, note that even 370 deaths since 2007 is a far smaller percentage than the public as a whole, even if you do count them all as murder.
Also note that some appear to have gotten permits despite convictions or other disqualifying circumstance; those are a case of bureaucratic negligence, and the holders were criminals regardless.