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Hey all,

Over the past few weeks I have been having nearly nonstop conversations with many family members, coworkers, facebook people etc.... about the issues surounding gun control. I have used much of the information on this forum to help many of them understand everything from "assault rifles" and why gun control doesn't necessarily work. The problem I am facing is that I am running myself ragged/semi burning the candle at both ends and not helping my blood pressure that much by discussing this with most people. Becasue of that, I have decided to create an essay detailing all of this, and because it is an essay I would like to make my high school english teacher proud on the construction and execution. But for me to do so I need stats, a bibliography and something a bit more concrete than opinions. I would greatly appreciate it if I could receive some help in this endeavor. When it is complete I'll even post a copy in this forum. Thank you in advance



ETA: Because my aunt (who is a DA) almost completely tore me apart I am trying to make it "court of law proof", or at least as close as I can get

You'll find plenty of good information linked from the Political section on the forum... but I'm not sure a new essay will be any more convincing then the one's already out there:

http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2012/ ... n-control/
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/ ... media.html

And in reality, the vast majority of the crowd that you are trying to convince is very unlikely to let something like facts get in the way of their argument.

I appreciate it, and I admit that several of the people may not change their views, but they are not the ones that I am going to be aiming for. I am aiming for those that are on the fence, uneducated or misinformed. Among that list includes a DA, a dozen or so Soldiers, some Airmen, a couple of Sailors, many hunters and a large number of educated friends that only see guns in movies. The kind of friends that don't know/realize that an upside down cross is a christian symbol relating to Saint Peter and not the devil (Saint Peter thought himself not worthy to be crucified the same way as Jesus Christ so he had the Romans crucify him upside) or that the symbol of a pentagram (5 pointed star) is actually the shape that Venus makes across the night sky every five years and an ancient symbol of protection. They also think that a 9mm Luger will throw a grown man 15 feet and kill him with 1 shot from over 50 yards away. The misinformed, unlearned and my friends are the ones that this essay is for. I can hand them literature all day long, written by others, but I believe that the impact will be better coming from me than anything else. Plus it will allow me to keep on track and have "notecards" when discussing this with others.

This should help... and many of the sources are what I would consider liberal. I don't remember where I got the link but it was on of the gun forums.


http://gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts/6.1 ... screen.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'd also recommend researching and following John Lott: http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/.

This is an excellent essay that may help with construction and content.
http://www.conservative21.net/displayart.cfm?docid=5168" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

the american essay is great! it may help? I just put one or two of these up on my FB wall every few days, hoping it will do some good, I've found that if you flood people with them they will shut down.

If you are serious about going forward with this, then you may also want to review:

The Safe School Initiative: (Review the PDF for Final Report & Findings):

http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac.shtml

The 10 key findings are very relevant to the overall discussion, particularly this one:

Despite prompt law enforcement responses, most shooting incidents were
stopped by means other than law enforcement intervention

If you like to delve deep into technical details, this report (thought quite old) has interesting data regarding various ballistics performance:

http://www.firearmstactical.com/hwfe.htm

Along those lines (if you understand all the details the above report is discussing):

http://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php? ... -Long-Guns

You might want to dig around the "Ammunition" section of that forum, as it has significant amounts of information.

teraph wrote:... They also think that a 9mm Luger will throw a grown man 15 feet and kill him with 1 shot from over 50 yards away. ...

I hate those extra powerful 9mm Lugers. Every time I shoot one it tosses me back 15 feet.

when you are doing research. most people don't know that Google has a special page just for you. No, not the regular Google is your friend page, but a real page for research called Google scholar. go to http://scholar.google.com/schhp?hl=en&tab=ws to try your search. It is almost exclusively restricted to the peer reviewed journals commonly used for academic research.

You might find yourself bogged down in some of the minutia of how they did their study and such, but it will help you learn how to debunk badly done studies. Many of the articles are critical of someone else's work and show the problems with it. It is amazing how polite some Ph.D.s can be when they call the other researcher a total incompetent.

Thank you all for the help. I'll let ya'll know what the end result is