Gun Control on College and University Campuses in the Wake of District of Columbia v. Heller and Mcdonald v. City of Chicago

Source:  Wasserman, Lewis. Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law. 2011. Vol 19, Issue 1, page 1-57. EBSCOhost.com

Summary: The article studies the effects gun control has on students, faculty and others in the controversy over guns on campus. Throughout the article, the study focuses on the controversy of the second amendment, the right to bear arms, and how concealed carry on campus contradict one another. The article also examines where on campuses law enforcement feels there should be stricter gun control and gun possession.

Quality: The article uses landmark court cases to connect the gun control controversy to the examination of the court case. The article does this thoroughly by going through all gun laws and gun activist through time up until the light of the District of Columbia V. Heller and McDonald V. City of Chicago.

Issue: The article was really long and it was difficult to find the connection to gun control on campus especially if someone doesn't know law terms. For example, "The court noted that 8 VAC § 35-60-20 did not impose a total ban of weapons on campus; rather, it restricted weapons: only in those places where people congregate and are most vulnerable inside-campus buildings and at campus events."  Majority of the article was descriptions of the court cases and the history of gun regulations in America. There was only one section that involved college concealed carry.

Keywords and Phrases:
Due process law
Gun laws
Precedent
Gun control

Citation: Wasserman, Lewis M. Gun Control on College and University Campuses in the Wake of District of Columbia V. Heller and McDonald V. City of Chicago." Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law. vol. 19, no. 1, Dec. 2011, pp 1-57.

"Concealed Carry Bans and the American College Campus: A Law, Social Sciences, and Policy Perspective"

Source: Arrigo, Bruce A. and Austin Acheson. "Concealed Carry Bans and the American College Campus: A Law, Social Sciences, and Policy Perspective." Contemporary Justice Review,  Vol. 19, No. 1, 120-141. Mar. 2016.

Summary: This document explains the ethical and moral reasoning for banning concealed weapons on college campuses. The author, Bruce Arrigo, analyzes the moral support for banning the conceal carry weapons on campus. The document calls for practices to be done to eliminate the destructive amount of campus shootings and to prevent more from occurring.

Quality: This article appears to be a very high-quality source. Arrigo uses many key points about the carry concealed weapon ban. They also used research from other publications to strengthen their argument, for example, "A study published by Bouffard, Nobles, Wells, and Cavanaugh (2011) attempted to predict what the effect would be on the prevalence of guns on campus if the concealed carry ban was removed." This document also provided different perspective on the concealed carry ban.

Issues: The document was really long, making it hard to keep track of all the different ideas. Although, they provided a well-developed summary at the end of the paper to remind the readers the main idea. If they left out the ending summary, it could have lost interest for the readers to finish out the entire thing.

Key Words and Phrases:
College Campus
Concealed Weapons
Ethics
Government Policy
Gun Laws