Purpose
The objective of this study is to compare different states in America that have strict gun control policies to those that have lenient gun control legislation. To comprehend the impact the gun control policies has on violent crimes, the study will incorporate the violent crime rates of the selected states. The research will attempt to find out whether strict gun control policies reduce or increases violent crimes and compare the results with those from areas that have strict gun control legislation.
Participants and Sampling Procedures
For participants, the study selected three different states that have varying levels of gun control legislations. The study made sure that the chosen states were enforcing their gun control policies on their populations. The study will also include survey samples from different universities and federal institutions. The research will use gun control index from each of the selected states as an independent variable. The control variable used in the study will comprise of many social and economic variables. Violent crime rate will be utilized as a dependent variable. The unit of analysis will be comparing groups in various states with stringent gun control policies to those with less restrictive policies. The unit of analysis will also incorporate completed survey results from university students and governmental institution that had been preselected. The research will look into and compare the rate of violent crimes from Arizona, Colorado, and Idaho. Arizona was chosen because for this studies because it is one of the states in America with less restricting gun control legislations. Colorado on the other hand, unlike Arizona, was chosen because strict measure on gun and ammunition regulations. The two states share similar demographics making them appropriate for the study. Finally, Idaho was added to the study with the sole purpose of helping gather data for the local area.
Research Design
In research design, the study considered two types of research that best explain the study proposal. The two research types used are explanatory and application research. The study is seen as explanatory because gun control is an issue that has drawn debates in the United States for a while now. Numerous incidents such as accidental shooting by toddlers, mass shooting in schools and other social avenues have resulted in fierce political debates with both proponents and opponents arguing their position on gun control legislation. This study will look into the issues raised with regards to gun control regulations and the continuing debate concerning the policies. The research will also explore knowledge of Idaho residents and seek their opinion on gun control legislations.
Apart from the explanation, the study will also consider an application type of research. This is because there are already legislations in place in the selected states that regulated gun and ammunition policies in an attempt to reduce violent crime in these areas. This study will try to analyze the available policies and argue whether areas that have high rates of violent crimes should adopt stricter gun control regulations or loosen the legislations in an attempt to reduce violent crimes.
The study also used a combination of cross-sectional and time-series experimental designs to analyze whether states with strict restrictions on gun experienced lower crime considered to states with less stringent legislations. Multiple studies have deployed the use of either time-series or cross-sectional experiments in an attempt to analyze the relationship between gun control legislations and crime. Time-series design is chosen as it is best used to examine a particular place such as a city, county or state over a given period. On the other hand, cross-sectional designs are best used to analyze different areas at a particular point in time (Lebo, & Weber, 2015). The two experimental models will help eliminate limitations to the study in that cross-sectional designs will contribute to compare statistics of the three states at different points in time. On the other hand, time-series will assist compare the results over a period stipulated by the research.
Operational Definition of Variables
Violent crime in this study is defined in recognition with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) definition. The statistics used are also based on the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports. The study ensured that all the variable were all state level statistics. Violent crime as defined by the FBI constitutes murder, non-negligent manslaughter, aggravated assault, robbery and forcible rape (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2011). These examples of violent crime as defined by the FBI were put together to come up with statistics of the total number of violent crimes for an individual state in a calendar year. The crime rate for each state was calculated based on one-hundred inhabitants per state. Each crime category that is, murder, forcible rape, robbery, non-negligent manslaughter and aggravated assault were also analyzed separately to find out whether gun control regulations played in part in influencing the rate of individual crime category.
The study created a secondary variable for violent crime rates. The secondary variable developed only used forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Murder rates were omitted from this variable. The reason for excluding murder rates was to determine whether the argument that gun control only affects violent crime through lowering murder were true. Removing homicide and non-negligent manslaughter the study will be able to identify effects of gun control on other violent crime categories.
Data Collection
The data collection method used by the study primarily looked into social artifacts like criminal activity statistics for different regions of each state. The research also collected data on the available gun control policies that were being enforced in each of the states identified.
Bias
One prominent bias in the research is that it will only be conducted with priority given to three different states. Arizona is chosen for the study because of the less restriction they have in place on gun control legislations. Colorado, on the other hand, is included in the study because of their strict policies they have in place on gun control. Idaho will act as a control state and will be used to collect data that will be used objectively for the hypothesis for a more local area
Assumption
One major assumption the study will have to make is that the statistics on criminal data that will be collected from the federal institution and the feedback from the students will be an accurate representation of the various areas that will be studied.
Limitation
The limitation of the research is that different other variables influence violent crime rates besides gun control legislations. Another limitation of the study is on the data collected mainly from the survey. It is a belief across researchers that surveys do not give an accurate representation of facts due to various factors associated with those taking the survey.
References
Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2011, July 25). Violent crime. Retrieved February 3, 2017, from https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/violent-crime
Lebo, M. J., & Weber, C. (2015). An Effective Approach to the Repeated Cross‐Sectional Design. American Journal of Political Science, 59(1), 242-258.
