Since the creation of the second amendment, social and political debate has filled the topic of gun rights and gun control. Due to this debate, much has been done in ways of research for fact as well as opinion formation. Since it is an issue which, by nature provides no true solution, it becomes a constant conversation of hypothetical situations as well as emotion, making it a social issue. I believe it is a topic in which every American citizen has some stake for either more gun control, more gun rights, or for a continuation for the present firearms legislation.
There are three sources of popular media reports which I believe show some of the reasoning behind the opinions of each side of the arguments as well as describing some of what legislation is changing and why there may be issues in any form of legislation that is put into play in the United States. Links to these sources are found below for your convenience.
-http://www.npr.org/2016/07/12/485726439/mass-shootings-influence-spike-in-gun-related-laws-at-state-level
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o6yhv6-3LQ
-https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/opinion/guns-silencers-congress.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FGun%20Control&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection
Though these sources do not cover all of what the gun debate is about and why it is such a complex social issue.
The sociological perspective provided by these articles rest on the presentation of the reaction they believe to get from their projected audience. Examples of showing current changes in firearm legislation such as the article from reporter Gail Collins of the New York Times, where she mentions the radical changes some politicians are attempting to pass reported n such a way as to provide a reaction. There is also a good source of sociological and structural perspective within the NPR radio report by Nathan Rott and Jeff Landa, as they provided several statistic based facts rather than opinion to provide their point.
More sociology based perspective in these articles would provide two added aspects to these reports. One being that there would be less bias within them, and the second being that the purpose of the work would be one based solely on empirical data. Similar to what I am attempting to accomplish here, sociological perspective is based entirely off of well collected and documented data, not baed on opinion or the desire to prove a point.
However, some things to consider while taking in these articles or any piece of information about this topic should revolve around considering who is writing the article and why. The majority of information about this topic is heavily seeded in the belief that a point needs to be proven for one side or the other. This tends to make the information biased even slightly. There has been a fair amount research done to provide more sociological based statistics on this topic, but to truly see the whole picture one must see all of the research and not just whatever may help their beliefs on this issue.
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