To: Dr.

Heidi Harris, Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Writing

From: Sraddhanjoli Bhadra, Undergraduate
Date: February 9, 2014
RE: Report Proposal Regarding Possible Gun Control Policy in UALR to reduce the crime rates
involving gun

Proposed Study

Gun violence has become a problematic issue for all U.S. institutions including UALR. In my research
report, I propose to study the statistics of gun violence at UALR, various gun control laws passed by
the State, gun control regulations at various universities within the State and outside where serious
gun violence has taken student and faculty lives.

Statement of Problem

Association of American Universities in their report on gun violence had stated Our schools and
campuses have unfortunately become centres of national mourning, from Columbine to Virginia Tech,
and now Newtown. Gun violence has become a serious issue in majority of schools in the country.
There has been no known incident of similar violence at UALR. However gun-point robbery within the
campus is often reported by Public Safety. This has created a fear in every students heart. Every
other day we receive an email notifying about the crime that took place. Such publicity has affected
student enrolment at UALR. No parents want to send their loved ones to a school where they hear
about gun violence. Therefore, for the safety and security of the students, faculties and staffs, there
needs to be some preventive measures to this problem. First a research is required to determine the
statistics of crime data at UALR over past five years and establish the trend. What the U.S.
government feels about gun control issue? What measures other universities are implementing to
minimize the violence rate? What measures other universities are taking to prevent gun violence?
How can we maintain a crime-free campus without affecting individual right? These are some
questions I plan to research in this report.

Intended Audience

My intended audience for this research is UALR that includes public safety and the students, staffs,
and faculties to enhance their safety and confidence.

Scope of Proposed Study

My study will explore the following issues:
1. An assessment of current crime rate involving gun on-campus and to determine the trend over past
five years.
2. An assessment of current UALR gun policy and how it is affecting the crime rates.
3. An assessment of other universities gun policy and its impact on student safety.
4. An assessment of consequences in terms of loss of lives due to gun violence.
5. An assessment of State laws that can affect gun control policy at UALR.
6. A recommendation for our university on gun control policy.

Data Sources (MLA format)

1. White House Plan to Reduce Gun Violence. Congressional Digest. March 2013. Web.

This article focuses on the measures proposed by the President Barack Obama for the licensed
firearms dealers while selling guns in order to better protect the children and the communities of U.S.
from tragic mass shootings. These steps include: close background check loopholes; strengthen the
background check system; banning of military-style assault weapons; encourage safe gun ownership;
how to make schools safer, and so on. This source will be useful because it talks about the various
measures that can be taken to mitigate the gun violence. A part of this article talks about steps that
need to be followed on how to make schools safer, which I can use as solutions to the gun violence
issue. This source is reliable because I have found it in UALR library database and the Congressional
Digest is an independent monthly publication which is published by Congressional Digest
Corporation. It also provides Debate Online Services.

2. Peter Dreier. Massacres and Movements: Challenging the Gun Industrial Complex. New Labor
Forum (Sage Publications Inc). May 2013. Web.

This article focuses on how the gun control became an issue in the United States. It focuses on the
many surveys conducted in U.S. since 2000 which show that the majority of the Americans support
stricter gun laws. Gun control was not an issue in the 2012 presidential campaign. But on December
14, the mass killings in Newtown, Connecticut put the topic near the top of the nations agenda. It also
focuses on how the gun industrial complex was affected and targeted after the incident in Newtown.
This source will be useful because it shows how intense the gun control issue is in U.S. and how
vastly it affects the lives of the people in U.S. I will use this source to emphasize on what can be the
consequences in terms of loss of human lives as well as at an emotional level for people who have
lost their near and dear ones if the U.S. government does not take up this issue seriously. This source
is reliable because the Sage Publications Inc. is a prestigious search and the survey was conducted
by a Pew Research Centre, which is popular for conducting public opinion polling. I have found this
article in UALR library database.

3. Wasserman, M. Lewis. Gun Control on College and University Campuses in the Wake of District of
Columbia V. Hellar and McDonald V. City of Chicago. Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law.
2011. Vol. 19 Issue 1, p1-57. Web.

This article focuses on the court declaring that the Second Amendment protects citizens right to keep
and bear arms in the home for the purpose of self-defence. This article evaluates the capacity of
public colleges and universities to enact gun control policies and its effects on faculty, staff, students
and others in light of the landmark Heller and McDonald decisions. This article also highlights about
areas in which campus officials should feel secure in enacting firearm controls as well as where
ambiguity remains. This source will be useful because it will allow me to look into this issue in a
broader way, i.e., the pros and the cons of gun control policies. I will use this source to examine what
are the gun control laws in other universities and whether they are useful or not. This source is
reliable because Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law is a student-edited journal and is the first
and only nonpartisan publication devoted exclusively to examining the interaction between law and
politics. It was founded under the guidance of Circuit Judge Antonin Scalia in 1982. I have found this
in an educational institutions database, i.e., UALR.

4. Kyle A. Burgason, Shaun A. Thomas and Emily R. Berthelot. The Nature of Violence A Multilevel
Analysis of Gun Use and Victim Injury in Violent Interpersonal Encounters. Journal of Interpersonal
Violence. 2013. vol. 29 p371-393. Web.

This article focuses on the different ways of gun use by researching on the incidents and physical
injuries sustained by the victims of the incident. This article examines the incident-level data from the
National Incident Based Reporting system in conjunction with contextual-level data on the cities in
which it occurred. This source is useful because it talks about the pattern of gun violence and the
variations in it. This source is reliable because it is written by people from University of Arkansas at
Little Rock from Department of Criminal Justice and is published by Journal of Interpersonal Violence
which is devoted to the study and treatment of victims and is published monthly. I have taken this
source from Google scholar.

5. James A. Fox and Monica J. DeLateur. Mass Shootings in America: Moving Beyond Newtown.
Homicide Studies. February 2014. vol. 18 no. 1 125-145. Web.

This article focuses on the mass shootings taking place at different venues which also include the one
in Connecticut elementary school. It also talks about advocates for tighter gun restrictions, for
upgrading security in public places especially in schools. It also focuses on school shootings taking
place. It also focuses on variety of myths and misconceptions about the mass shooters. This article is
useful because it talks about gun use at an extreme level. I will use this article to suggest policy
proposals regarding gun control issue in order to avoid gun violence. This article is reliable because
Homicide Studies which is a high quality, multidisciplinary publication devoted to the dissemination of
information concerning research, public policy and so on. I have taken this source from Google
scholar.