Ok guys, I'm having a hard time finding some good info here. I'm writing a paper for school and need some help finding some good resources. I need to find some dissertation papers, scholarly articles, or some solid data from a reliable source that supports gun rights.

I already have a TON of information that supports gun control and other anti-gun measures so info towards this is not needed. Also, I cannot use sources from billy bobs blog or the nra.

I also don't want to create a debate here. I'm simply looking for journals, articles, etc from a database that I may be able to scrub and use in my paper.

Thanks!!

I don't mean to be condescending but have you tried the school library?

If your school is an online only college then perhaps try your local public community college library. It is free or near-free to sign up for public community college and they usually grant full access to the library and article search once you are registered as a student - even if you are technically taking 0 classes. You may not have to pay anything at all to use the library, just enroll but don't sign up (pay) for any classes.

The reason I mention all of this is because the colleges here in San Diego, both community and state, UC, etc. all offer extensive and powerful access to the type of article databases academics and journalists (& some college students) need to write papers and do general research. Think Google but for academia.

I'm sure that someone else on this forum will know the names of the journal & article databases. There are several companies (the school pays them) and the schools all have access both at the library and often remote as well. I remember that one of my teachers showed us how to use it and gave out the password for research we were doing in my English Critical Thinking class. It is fairly standard to grant students local and remote access to these databases at no extra cost.

Kids these days head over to Wiki and start sifting through the References Section.


Gun politics in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Right to keep and bear arms - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

scholar.google.com

you may need journal access through your school to see full articles, but many of them are available without it. and, in most cases, you can see abstracts and such to decide if you want the full version

Brian,

Yes. I have used the school library and found some books (Less guns, less crime) and some dissertation papers. I found another paper written by an FSU professor Gary Kleck that assumed that there are 2.5 million cases of guns being used for self defense each year. The problem though is that they are mostly inflated statistics and other information is based off of opinion.

I'm looking for actual numbers that I can use to counter the numbers that show the damage caused by guns... or people with guns.

Bofa,

Unfortunately because wiki is user based and requires no level of education to post/update info, I cannot use wiki as a source. Most of the links or sources that I have found on wiki fall into the categories above (ie: inflated stats or opinion).

I've mentioned this before on this site but have you or anyone else read/listened-to the episode of NPR's Freakonomics where they examined the Gun data and statistics?

It was quite interesting an debunked many if not all of the typical so called liberal myths against guns. In reality gun ownership is supported by nearly 70% of America, including many of the so called left.

The podcast covers how swimming pools are actually far more dangerous, how that 30,000 deaths number is 2/3 suicides, how gun buybacks are a corrupt waste of time, how the average gun owned by an American kills someone every 1,500 years.

The Freakonomics Economists Call Out the Gun Control Debate (AUDIO)

Freakonomics » How to Think About Guns: A New Freakonomics Radio Podcast

I don't know how reliable you would call the NRA, but they would an abundant amount of papers, etc. that support gun rights. Would much of it be biased? Sure, but at least it would be a starting point to work on from there.

If you have access to Jstor, cross reference gun control against all case verdicts concerning such and that may help you with more credible source material.

have you tried google scholar yet?

this is old but may have some relevant data (same Kleck guy you're talking about, probably same paper):

http://www.hoplofobia.info/wp-conten...e-to-Crime.pdf

here's some stuff that may not support your argument (but you may want to address) Gun Threats and Self-Defense Gun Use | Harvard Injury Control Research Center | Harvard School of Public Health . also, if you look at their actual papers, they will no doubt be citing the stuff that you're looking for. (unfortunately, these articles seem to exist to point out the flaws in what you're looking to prove).

also i think against your narrative (but again, a great strategy in all this is to check a paper's citations): Gun use in the United States: results from two national surveys -- Hemenway et al. 6 (4): 263 -- Injury Prevention

http://home.uchicago.edu/ludwigj/pap...fense_2000.pdf

I did read that paper from Kleck. I am not so much trying to prove anything definitive. It's an open question paper where I need to not have a decision leading one way or the other. I already have a rough draft of the paper done but was looking to beef up the pro-gun argument with something a little more substantial. I ended up using a couple recent newspaper articles to show that armed citizens are beneficial to society.

What is your main thesis? (if you wish to discuss)

Perhaps some of the people here could help you tweak the main idea.

Its been about 6 years since I was in college English but I recall most of my argumentative papers breaking down into a thesis supported by 3-4 main points, each with their own sentence.

"Guns are a benefit to society" is kind of vague, although I'm sure that is just an abbreviation for the forum.

Personally I think it is really irrelevant where or not guns are a benefit to society. It would be like discussing if Alcohol or Religion are a benefit to society. The fact is that Guns, Alcohol, Religion etc are all integrated parts of American society and that will never change. It is how we choose to live with them that is up for debate, how much should they be limited.

Although it may not be what you wish to talk about in your paper - I will throw it out there - you may want to consider not focusing on how guns do benefit society (which even to me, a pretty moderate gun supporter sounds kind of dubious and open for debate), but instead discuss how nearly all of the proposed gun reforms will not have stopped any of the massacres over the last several years. This is easy to prove.

All of the various gun laws that haven been passed, even the now dead Federal Assault Weapons Ban, would not have stopped Sandy Hook or the CO theater shooting, or the UC Santa Barbara killer and the list goes on. Gun control activists keep trying to pass reforms that actually won't stop any of these massacres because they refuse to accept that a certain number of gun murders, including mass shootings like University of Texas 1966, are part of the price for having a society that accepts guns and gun usage by law abiding citizens. There will always be these type of cases, they are OUTLIARES and can never be truly avoided. Also you could talk about how banning guns doesn't actually keep them out of the hands of criminals - just look at Mexico.

In summary, I just wanted to say that it seems a lot easier to me to disprove and debunk the gun reform arguments than to argue for why Guns are Great for America.

You have some great points! My topic is "Gun Control: Do We Need More or Less"? I pointed out facts that would allow the reader to form their own opinion and sway either direction. I am not allowed to form a decision either way in the paper. However, I will admit that from the research I have done for my paper I am a lot more neutral on gun control that I ever have been.

I would be curious to get your take on it if you don't mind. If you're cool with it, shoot me (yep... that just happened) your email address and I'll send it to you.

I recently wrote a paper on this... Trying to find it. I sent you a PM with my login information for ProQuest as well.

I wrote my thesis on guns, I can email it to you if you want. It's kind of specific and may not be super useful, but worth a look. It is unpublished but you can feel free to cite if you find it helpful.

I didn't read the other comments but google scholar is really useful

Thanks! I have access to the ERAU library. They subscribe to a few different databases and ProQuest is one. As a matter of fact, the two opposing dissertation papers I found were from that database.

You don't have to use Wikipedia as a source, but check out what Wiki uses for sources, and then hopefully those articles/papers have sources, etc.

Good to see you around, by the way.