The debate on whether or not civilians should be allowed to bear arms is not a new one. People have been arguing about it for decades. So my research question is how can the government lower gun violence in the US but not intrude on citizens' second amendment rights. Even after all of these years of debating, neither side has been able to work it out and come to a compromise. That is one of the reasons I am so interested in this topic. This also relates to my values because I've been around guns all my life. Growing up my brothers and I would go to the range with my dad and we would shoot rifles, pistols, or go skeet shooting. So I would be very disappointed if I could not continue to do that. I've also had an experience with a similar situation when people thought there was going to be a ban on selling high capacity magazines, everyone including my dad bought up as many as they could. I think I am qualified to write about this because I own a rifle but also realize something needs to change from looking at the amount of gun violence in the US compared to other countries.

Adam Winkler is a law professor at UCLA who specializes in second amendment rights. He has written a book about gun control and also several op-ed pieces for the Los Angeles Times. In his article "Want fewer guns on California streets? Open carry may be the answer", he doesn't show a noticeable amount of bias due to that his arguments are speculations as to what will happen if the law was in place. He refers to the interests of California gun owners as part of his evidence throughout the article. He also mentions the interests of the people who do not want an open carry policy, saying that people who don't like guns may be alarmed if they see people with weapons on their hips in public. His main argument is that if most citizens were able to have concealed or open carried firearms with them in public that it would be a deterrent for shooters.

Alvin Chang is a graphics reporter for vox.com. He received his master's degree in humanizing technology from NYU. He previously worked at ESPN and The Boston Globe. Most of his articles are about politics, but he has written several about mass shootings. He doesn't show very much bias through his own words, however he does through the facts he uses as his arguments. He starts out giving a description of what and assault rifle is and lists a few statistics, but for the rest of the article the evidence he uses is showing why it's wrong. His main argument as to why banning assault rifles won't solve anything is that the government has specifically targeted them only because it is the kind of weapon used in the mass shootings that are covered by media. In the grand scheme of things, these shootings play only a small role in the total deaths caused by gun violence in America. So banning them would actually only lower a small percentage of these deaths. He then goes on to explain how similar handguns are to assault rifles and shows that they are responsible for a much larger portion of deaths than any other type of firearm, so the government should focus on them. 

Matthew Speiser is an editorial intern for business insider. He graduated from the University of Delaware with a degree in journalism. He tends to write mostly about politics or violent stories about the US, including guns. In his article "DEAR AMERICA: Here's why everyone thinks you have a problem with guns", he shows a small amount of bias because he writes about very little of the other side of the argument. The article is entirely made up of charts and statistics. There is no clear, central argument comprised within these graphs. He is simply throwing a massive amount of facts at the reader to show the scale of the problem. He jumps around to different possibilities as to the cause of America's obsession with guns towards the end, claiming it could be from violent video games or movies. Possibly the stories showed on news media. 

This is an arguable research question because it has already been argued over for several years but still has not produced a solution. So that leaves an opportunity for me to propose a solution of my own based off of the information I collect. Most of what I've gathered from my sources is that they all agree that there is a problem with violence in America, it is the solution to that problem they disagree on. One side says that the easy access Americans have to firearms is the cause for all of the violence and that there should be stricter limits as to what kind of weapons we can own. The other side says that criminals will find a way to get the weapons they want regardless of what we do and that the restrictions would only hurt law abiding citizens. Both of these arguments make sense, so that makes it difficult for me to choose a side. I may also need to revise my research question so that it is more specific so instead of trying to tackle gun control in general it will only be a particular part.
