The Importance Of Gun Control Laws In The United States

Gun control laws have been a hot and controversial topic for some time now. Many different parties have argued with each other about applying laws that will control firearms in the U.S. I chose to write about this debate because I do not have a personal opinion on the matter, I do not own a gun or am an enthusiast, neither do I argue for gun restrictions. Many argue with points that it is written in our constitution our natural right to bear arms, while others argue that if we remove the ability to use a firearm or a weapon that is designed to kill someone, we will ultimately reduce or remove violent crimes in the U.S.. An article that argued for strict gun control demonstrated many of the author’s ideas through statistics and data, however,

The first problem with using these as viable sources is the fact that they are surveys and not reliable statistical data that should be used for arguing how gun control laws affect violent crimes. The author had intended to use this information to compare violent crimes in the U.S. and England/Wales as the laws on guns were different in each nation. A simple problem with the reliability of this data is the fact that these are surveys. The author even went on to explain that these were surveys and not all crime is reported through voluntary surveys. I don’t think surveys should be used in an argumentative article about violence or gun control laws. The other problem with comparing these sets of data with one another were the variance in culture, urban structure, and government structure that these two nations have with one another. The two nations also have differing definitions of “violent” crimes. These are simply logical fallacies that should eliminate this author’s sources from the argument of the article. A more effective form of arguing comparative data on violent crimes may have been from police or official records comparing states that have more or less strict gun control laws. Or comparing data from a pre-gun control era in one state to a post-gun control era in the same

I found most of the information they used to be unreliable, irrelevant and hard to apply as reliable data for the purpose of the author’s argument. The website that the article was published on, The Economist, I have not had any experience on and was unfamiliar with the reliability of the articles published on the site. After reading this article, however, I will be very vigilant in how I scrutinize any information that I may use from that site, as I did not find this article to be very convincing or accurate in its data. I also didn’t appreciate the fact that the author chose to use his/her initials rather than a full name. I have no idea as to who this person is or what kind of experience they may have. It’s possible that it was someone completely inexperienced in gun laws or the justice department and chose to write an article about their opinion.
After reading an article like this, I understand why it’s so important to research into the reliability of an author’s information and resources. If I were to use this data in my own paper or for my own research, I would be sadly misguided and be using unreliable or irrelevant data. It is very important to know what you are reading, who wrote it, and whether the information is reliable or credible. If we do not research information regularly, we can have mistaken ideas and