Bearing Arms

Essay by sweettarts303College, UndergraduateA, December 2004

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Bearing Arms

Milicent Evans

Whatcom Community College

Sociology 110

Charles Tompkins

August 9, 2004

Table of Contents

Define the Problem Page 3

Review of Literature Page 3

Hypothesis Page 8

Methodology Page 9

Conclusion Page 9

Reference Page 11

Appendix Page 12

Define the Problem

According to James D. Wright, Professor of Human Relations at Tulane University, "half the households in the country own at least one gun" (Wright, 1995, 1), and "there are 200 million guns already in circulation in the United States" (Wright, 1995, 2). Statistics like these show that guns are accepted norms and important in our culture. But why do guns play a big part in society? Do people own guns for power? For protection? Or both? These questions needed research and answers and me to find them. The dependent variables I will attend to are who owns guns and why? The independent variables hopefully will clarify through my research and methodology.

Review of Literature

In the article "Ten essential observations on guns in America," published in March 1995, author James D Wright, addresses the propagation of guns in our society. By doing so, James Wright emphasize the norms of guns in society and their uses. Through his research deriving from twenty years, Wright asserts "ten fundamental truths" (Wright, 1995, 1), on guns . His findings and this article includes brief explanations on:

"The number of households in the country with guns; Number

of guns in national circulation; Security derived by the public

in owning guns; Access of bad elements of society to guns;

Violence spawned by guns in the wrong hands; Importance of

guns in American history and culture" (Wright, 1995, 1)

In his observations of guns, James Wright believes that firearms are "neither inherently good nor inherently evil" because "benevolence and malevolence inhere in...