Sociology Essay On Gun Control

This is an academic article that is part of an academic journal entitled “Rural Sociology.” The article utilizes 20 interviews with police officers from a rural sheriff’s department to, provide an indepth examination of how rural police officers in the U.S. view gun control. The article provides many direct quotes from active and retired officers. This one is from a officer named Kent who has been working with law enforcement for nearly 40 years. “I would say that [rural upbringing] probably does have some influence on it [views of gun control], because I'm thinking, “Why would you have to take a weapon away from somebody that is well-versed in how it's to be used in the proper ways?” But on the flip side of that, being involved in law enforcement

It doesn’t quite have the recency of some of the other sources, but it more then makes up for it in it’s other aspects. The article’s validity comes from the sheer amount of peer reviewed articles and infomative sources it borrows from. The information and statistics presented in the article are very welled researched. In a quick skim through the article I counted 25 unique sources, while the actual number may be slightly bigger or smaller it doesn’t change the fact that this article pools together a massive amount of peer reviewed, well researched information for it’s observations. The interviews with actual cops from a rural community helps both it’s validity and it’s reliability. The articles reliability comes from it’s use on well researched information as well. The article wouldn’t be nearly as reliable without the many peer reviewed articles it uses as sources. The article itself is also very credible. The individuals who wrote the article are all well educated and well spoken. The article also lacks a lot of clearly noticeable bias. Most of the bias present is from police officers interviewed and not the authors. As with it’s validity and reliability the article’s numerous strong sources also help reinforce it’s credibility. The recency isn’t too terrible as the article was only published last October, but in a year a lot can change in terms of polls and other