Maxwell Leasure

Mrs. Porter

ENG 1201

17 March, 2018

Annotated Bibliography

My claim is that gun control is ineffective at lowering overall crimes rates, mass

shootings, and violent crime as a whole.

Hsiao, Timothy, and C’zar Bernstein. “Against Moderate Gun Control.” Libertarian

Papers, vol. 8, no. 2, Dec. 2016, pp. 308–325. EBSCOhost,

sinclair.ohionet.org:80/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=poh&

AN=119963016&site=eds-live.

This paper argues primarily against the current state of the Left and their views on gun

control. It takes two main arguments, a philosophical one and a statistical one. The philosophical

argument is that gun control is an infringement on the rights to self-protection and preservation.

This is essentially the argument that is commonly stated when using the Second Amendment.

The second method of argument used is a statistical one that is used to support than gun control

is not the answer to stopping violent crime. For example, the author states that twenty studies

have found the right-to-carry laws have led to a decrease in both rape and murder rates while no

studies have shown the opposite, though some have found no correlation.

The author has a clear purpose to persuade the reader towards a stronger belief in gun

rights. This article was published in the Libertarian Papers, which means their intended audience
most likely already believes in gun rights, as it is a general Libertarian belief so it makes sense

that the argument of the paper would be against gun control.

The author is a professor at Grantham University and Park University. His political views

are known and self admittedly to the right. Though having this belief system, he uses many

sources from different institutions and studies that are reliable and reputable. He uses facts and

statistics to back up his claims and the article was written in 2016, so it is current. This article

has a bias but has a lot of good information that just has to be corroborated before putting it in a

paper.

This paper provides a lot of statistical analysis of why gun control is ineffective and I will

use the facts presented throughout it in multiple parts of my research paper once I can confirm

their accuracy through another source.

Lewis, J. Scott. “The Relationship between Gun Control Strictness and Mass Murder in

the United States: A National Study 2009-2015.” International Social Science Review, vol. 94,

no. 2, May 2018, pp. 1–23. EBSCOhost,

sinclair.ohionet.org:80/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=poh&

AN=131932327&site=eds-live

This paper discusses the degree to which gun control actually stops mass shootings. This

paper is not biased towards one side or another over whether the US needs stricter or more

lenient gun control as it gives statistics that can support both sides. For example, in the period

studied (2009-2015), the US has had stricter gun control enforced as a whole while the usage of

firearms in mass shootings has not been affected. On the contrary, it also states that states with

stricter gun control also have fewer mass shootings.

 The purpose of this article is to inform the public about the effect of gun control on the

amount of mass shootings in America. This audience does not have a bias towards one side or

the other of the gun control debate and therefore does not have a specific audience.

This article was written by an assistant professor at Penn State Harrisburg. It was

published in a scholarly reviewed journal in August of 2018. It analyzes recent years of mass

shootings and uses a number of different sources and references for the information it provides.

I will use this reference most in my paper when specifically discussing mass shootings

and also a few of the statistics throughout the rest of my paper.

Raissian, Kerri M. “Hold Your Fire: Did the 1996 Federal Gun Control Act Expansion

Reduce Domestic Homicides?” Journal of Policy Analysis & Management, vol. 35, no. 1, Winter

2016, pp. 67–93. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1002/pam.21857.

This journal explores the 1996 Federal Gun Control Act (GCA) and the effects it had,

specifically on domestic violence. It also analyzes how states enacted the GCA differently. The

research found that this act did have a noticeable effect on domestic violence, with domestic

violence dropping in the time period studied. However, and possibly more importantly, the

article states that overall gun-related homicides did not drop in any significant amount.

The purpose of this piece was to suggest a strategy that might reduce the amount of

domestic violence in the United States; this method would be to increase gun control. The

intended audience is not too specific and could really be read by anyone.

This article, published at the start of the 2016 is fairly recent. The author, Kerri Raissian,

has a Ph.D. She is a professor at University of Connecticut and this work was published in the
Journal of Policy Analysis, all of which leads to this being a source reliable enough for an

academic journal.

This paper will be used in two ways, one to prove that gun control is ineffective in

stopping violent crime and also to create counter arguments against advocates for gun control.

Philpott, Jones, Sean. “Mass Shootings, Mental Illness, and Gun Control.” Hastings

Center Report, vol. 48, no. 2, Mar. 2018, pp. 7–9. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1002/hast.832

This article explores in depth the relation between gun violence, specifically mass

shootings and mental illness. It states that more than half of mass shooters have either been

diagnosed with mental illness or at least showed major signs of this. It then discusses the current

restrictions on purchasing a gun when mentally ill and the inconsistencies of the different states

in the union on mental illness diagnosis and reporting. She then continues to delve into the idea

of more gun control as a whole and not just the mental health of Americans purchasing these

guns. Most of the ideas she suggest are fairly on par with the Democratic party believe when it

comes to gun control.

The purpose was to remind the reader that mass shootings are complicated and cannot be

solved by either pushing just mental health reform or stricter gun control. Though there is a

slight lean towards stricter gun control this article provides good information.

This article was published by the Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute. It was

written by a well-known researcher who is also the Director of the Bioethics program at

Clarkson University and holds other respectable positions. He is a trusted researchers and

provides quality, reliable work. This is a reputable source that is credible and citable in a

research paper.
 I will mainly use the information gathered by this to cite arguments and statistics that

advocates of gun control often refer to in order to strengthen my own argument by proving there

is a stronger argument against these statistics.

Kleck, Gary, et al. “Does Gun Control Reduce Violent Crime?” Criminal Justice Review

(Sage Publications), vol. 41, no. 4, Dec. 2016, pp. 488–513. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1177/0734016816670457.

This journal explores in depth the effect that gun control has on violent crime in America.

It concludes that there is not significant evidence to prove that gun control reduces levels of

violent crime and enacting gun laws are just as likely to increase violent crime as it to decrease

it. This article does a good job of exploring both positive and negative effects of gun control on

rates of violent crime. The only factor of gun control this study found impactful on decrease

violent crime was background checks, however even this measure has its limitations.

The article’s target audience is not too specific, it was privately funded and does not

appear to have a bias or agenda it is trying to push.

This article was written by a professor of criminology at Florida State College. He has a

specific interest in researching gun control, crime control, and violent crime. This specific article

was published by Georgia State University in 2016 and because of all of this, is a good source to

use in my paper.

Shi, Wei, and Lung-fei Lee. “The Effects of Gun Control on Crimes: A Spatial

Interactive Fixed Effects Approach.” Empirical Economics, no. 1, 2018, p. 233. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1007/s00181-017-1415-2
 This article discusses the effects of gun control, right-to-carry laws, and their effects on

crime. It analyzes states and their own gun control then takes into account different factors such

as neighboring state crime and spatial dependence to analyze the crime rates in these states with

a focus on murder and robbery. It mainly finds that right-to-carry laws have little to no effect on

the rates of property crime. However the rates of murder and non-negligent manslaughter both

we reduced by more than 4% within about 5 years of a state’s passage of right-to-carry laws.

The purpose of this article was to research the effect that gun control, or more accurately

the lack of gun control has on crime. It was published in Empirical Economics which is a public

journal that has a focus on accuracy so it doesn’t have a specific bias or agenda.

As previously stated, this was published by Empirical Economics, which is a very

reliable reference as well as the author Wei Shi, the author, be a known researcher who does high

quality work. This work was published in 2018 so it is current and a quality source for this paper.

I will use this to support my claim that gun control is ineffective. Specifically it will

support the argument that more guns may not be the answer to lowering crime rates, neither is

gun control.

Smith, Victoria, et al. “Broadening the Perspective on Gun Violence: An Examination of

the Firearms Industry, 1990-2015.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine, no. 5, 2017, p.

584. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2017.05.002.

This source talks about the trends in the firearm industry and how there has been a shift

towards more powerful weapons. Pistols are the main item discussed in the article and the trend

towards more powerful calibers. The main claim of the paper is that there is a trend towards

more lethal weapons in the firearm industry because they are getting more powerful, which
means more deadly. The article also discusses the link between more powerful firearms being

available and the increase in uses in violent crime.

The purpose in this article was to inform about the trends in the firearm industry by

discussing the trends in the firearms industry as well as the types of firearms used in violent

crime. It also claims to be the first research linking the two together. As this was written in the

American Journal of Preventive Medicine, its intended audience is people interested in

preventing firearm related crime before it happens, especially those who support stricter gun

control.

This article was written by Victoria Smith among others, many of which had their PHDs.

It was also published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine and uses data from the US

government such as the DOJ and the ATF. This source was published in 2017 with the data

being analyzed in 2016. This is source is a very reliable one due to the reasons listed above.

This source gives a lot of information that I will mainly use in support of why gun control

is ineffective. One important fact I will use is the number of guns being produced has

dramatically increased while the gun violence has not in the last decade and a half. I will also use

it to support that even though the amount of higher power guns has increased dramatically, the

use of them in violent crime has not increased proportionately.