Looking out over the crowd gathered at the northern rim of Washington Square Park last Saturday afternoon, Otis McDonald took a moment to let the last wave of applause and jeers die down before he resumed his address. The argument of the hour was about gun laws, and whether or not restrictions on ownership should eased in the city.

McDonald, the plaintiff in the case led the Supreme Court to overturn Chicago’s handgun ban, leaned into his microphone.

“Would you prefer … that someone walks down the street thinking they need a fix, and they break into your house and you have nothing to defend yourself with?” he asked.

“I don’t believe in war,” a man shouted, his hands cupped over his mouth, “therefore I have no use for the Second Amendment.”

Someone else cried out something about the likeliness of gun bans bringing back slavery (forcing a collective wince from several onlookers), while a woman in front demanded that McDonald give sources for gun-death statistics he cited earlier in his speech.

A man in hunting attire standing left of the stage then yelled that Chicago Public Schools should making target practice a mandatory course, and the crowd erupted on all sides, in an outburst of equal parts laughter, haranguing and solemn groans.

Garrett Evans, a survivor of the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre and McDonald’s opponent in the debate, bent over the stage to speak to a man in a suit who said he was suing the city over its reworking of the gun ban.

Evans attempted a show of fervor by addressing the crowd from the middle of the stage sans-amplification, as if reenacting a debate from a century before. He was quickly shouted back to his mic.

Both speakers tried to articulate a concluding statement, but the contest had already been lost to the tangential whim of the crowd. And with that, another Bughouse Square Debate came to close.

Last Saturday’s Bughouse Square Debates were the 25th since a committee of orators and activists recast them as an annual commemoration of the free speech traditions long a part of the Washington Square Park area.

The original debates started in the first decade of the 20th century. The term “bughouse” refers the radical notions that poets, priests and political agitators often put forth from their one-man stages at the corners of the park. The subjects ranged from labor crises to pleas that the unsaved to commit themselves to Christianity.

“People would get up and speak on any topic of the day,” said Joffre Stewart, a self-proclaimed non-violent revolutionary who began attending the debates in the late forties.

Stewart remembered the loud-speaker trucks brought around by communist groups to drown out the lectures of those defending capitalism.

The debates were held daily in the summer, and the fiery words of speakers such as John Carroll and the socialist William Lloyd Smith drew large crowds in the evenings, said Stewart.

Other famous bughouse debaters throughout the years included Lucy Parsons, a radical labor organizer, and fiber optics engineer and Herbert John Shaw, known affectionately as the “Cosmic Kid.”

Public interest in the gatherings waned toward the end of the 1960s, as Washington Square Park itself fell into disuse and would-be debate goers increasingly looked to television and radio personalities to inform their opinions.

The event today honors the spirit of the debates, right down to the wanton heckling from audience members and the resolve of debaters who will stop at nothing to get their point across.

And while the times have changed, the topicality seemingly hasn’t. This year’s soapbox speeches included “How Organized Workers Can Change the World and Win Justice,” and “Unless You Repent.”

Steve Tucker, a conservative healthcare advocate and Tea Party activist, was met with calculated disdain from onlookers as he preached his discourse on “Obama-care” at last Saturday’s debates.

Tucker said that the bughouse format differs greatly from the platforms he is used to speaking on, which include more formal settings like town hall meetings, where audiences usually wait for the question-and-answer segment before the rants begin.

“People can put out their passions, they can put out their objections and hopefully I can try to answer them if I’m not shouted down,” he said.

Debate watcher Colleen Kamin said that the discussions seem to be more of a venting exercise than an attempt by orators and the audience to cross the aisle.

“I think everyone comes in with an opinion ... and they’re willing to tell you their opinion, but I don’t think anyone is swayed,” she said. “There are a lot of not-so-good debates, but there are a lot of good points made.”

The soapbox speeches were broken up into three stages, with each speaker given fifteen to speak their piece. At the end of the day, the best speakers were given awards, which include a giant plastic dill pickle, a nod to one of the early bohemian groups which attended the debates.

Some orators were given an attentive listen — such as the students speaking on the need for increased government financial aid — while others, namely those proselytizing, were torn apart.

“Why doesn’t God talk to me the way he talks to you?” hollered Brian Hanrahan at one lecturer, who pushed through his sermon on Christianity amid a storm of exclamations ranging from humorous to callous.

After the homily, Hanrahan said that for him the debates are all about the human element.

“This is a chance to challenge things face-to-face,” he said. “I don’t really hate the Jesus guys; I just want to talk about the logical inconsistencies.”

And for Hanrahan, it’s not all about giving people a hard time; while he does take pleasure in a good heckle, he said that he often has constructive dialogues with people whom he jeered at the podium minutes before.

“I think it can help to talk to people and test out ideas in front of a crowd,” he said.