The Gun Control Debate: You Decide (Contemporary Issues

Columbine and other highly publicized shootings have kept America's century-old gun debate in the forefront of public attention.Using selections from historians, criminologists, social scientists, public health specialists, and jurists, Dr. Nisbet provides an in-depth analysis of the central issues involved in our debate over guns. By providing a set of critical-thinking questions, with examples of experts raising these very points, Nisbet invites readers to evaluate gun-control issues more deeply and thoroughly than is possible in the popular media's portrayal of the issue.Among the questions addressed are: Does the availability of guns influence levels, patterns, and concentrations of violent crime? If so, how, and what are the policy implications? Do guns for self-defense menace gun owners and their families more than protect them? Should women, in particular, arm themselves? How should we interpret the Second Amendment? How does the gun debate reflect underlying cultural volatility?Containing twenty-nine new articles and an entirely new section on the media called, "The Gun Control Debate in the Age of (Mis)information," this new revised edition provides the most up-to-date research on this hotly contested topic. The contributors include B. Bruce-Briggs, Philip J. Cook, Barry Glasner, Gordon Hawkins, Richard Hofstadter, Don B. Kates Jr., Gary Kleck, David Kopel, John Lott, Joyce Malcolm, Gary Wills, Mary Zeiss Stange, Franklin E. Zimring, and others.xNo matter what side of the debate you're on, this outstanding collection of the best articles on gun control will give you the critical-thinking tools and the facts needed to understand the complexities of this controversial issue.

Lee Nisbet, Ph.D. is professor of philosophy at Medaille College, Buffalo, NY, and a founding member and fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). He writes and lectures frequently on the application of logical and psychological critical-thinking techniques to controversial policy issues.