When I was deciding to choose a research topic, gun violence was the first thing that popped into my head.  It is something that has interested me ever since the Sandy Hook shootings.  Since then, I have been disturbed by the current view of guns in this country and do not understand why so many deaths have to occur in order for something to change.  I understand that it is a constitutional right, but at the same time, guns are not the same as they were back when the amendment was written.   I do not necessarily have any personal experience with gun control and I haven't been involved with guns that much.  The only time I have handled a gun was skeet shooting in the Ozark Mountains in Missouri, and hunting gophers with my friend out in Montana.  These two instances are what I believe guns should be used for, other than the military obviously.  Ever since I heard a poorly debated argument about gun control in my U101 class, I have wanted to voice my opinion.

Taya Kyle, widowed wife of fallen soldier Chris Kyle, wrote an article for CNN called "Gun Control Won't Protect Us".  She suggests that guns themselves are not the problem, but instead it is the actual people that do the killing.  Taya highlights that fact that such a small number of people commit theses mass shootings, that it is the fault of only the people and not the guns, most of the time these people having some sort of mental illness or drug problem, and how that needs to be addressed instead of controlling the guns.  She knows this type of killing from her experiences with the death of her husband, Chris Kyle, otherwise known as the 'American Sniper'.  He was killed while at an armory shooting with someone that claimed to have PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).  This man killed both Chris and another man, while claiming to have the disorder, which most of the time gets these killers out of their situation.

A Washington Post article, "The Gun Control Debate: Explained in 5 Questions", attempts to answer the gun control argument. This article highlights both sides of the argument for each question it asks.  For example, the author, Amber Phillips, asks if whether or not prohibiting gun control is compatible with the second amendment, she explains the views of both sides, not speaking with bias at all.  Phillips uses the statistics that both sides use in their article, to show what each side is bringing to the table.  This is an informative article that gives the reader the opportunity to read both sides of the argument and make their own judgment call.  The credibility of the author for an article like this is important and she is credible by writing for a credible newspaper like the Washington Post. 

A Pew Research article, "5 facts about Guns in the United States", is similar to the previous article regarding gun control.  It includes the fact that many Americans support the call for more and stringent background checks, along with the reasoning that most Americans own a gun has changed from more people hunting, to more people using them for self-defense.  The company that conducts and publishes the research for the article is Pew research.  They track trends in different subjects, looking in this case at voting numbers and relying on other secondary sources to help with their explanations.  They use graphs and visuals to help explain their facts, so the credibility can be confirmed due to the availability of their information that can be found online.  The article explains that the republican party holds more power in reflecting the views of the public than the democrats, meaning that the country is still pro guns.

My research question of whether certain aspects of guns should be more regulated is very arguable due to how much it is being argued in our society today.  With this subject being one of the most debated topics in the country, and with having the country being pretty much evenly split on this subject, it is easily arguable. However there honestly isn't a realistic end to it in the near future.  Of the sources I have found, there seems to be more informative articles than argumentative.  But for the argumentative articles, there are more disagreements than agreements.  The need for more background checks is a big agreement that both sides has, but the banning of certain guns and argument for more gun laws is very disagreed upon.  I think that the perspective of Chris Kyle's wife is an interesting one because she has a firsthand experience dealing with gun death.  Even though her husband was killed by a gun, she still is able to shine light on what she thinks is the real problem.  Because of this, I need to revise my research question, and focus much more on how I am for more stringent background checks with greater regulation on the laws themselves.

