General response guidelines: 

 PROMPT: Students choose their own claim (instructor must approve via Argument
Proposal) and support it through one of the argumentation models. 
 1,500-2,000 words (5-7 pgs)
 MLA layout and guidelines
 A variety of citation methods (quotation, block quoting, summary, paraphrase, image)
 Works Cited page (7 works included) - These may or may not be the same from your
Annotated Bibliography.  As students research, they typically add and drop different
sources.

OUTLINE : an argument that explores the roots of gun violence in America?

 
By better understanding the situations and contexts where gun violence occurs, perhaps we can
then better understand how to limit gun violence (which likely has more to do with laws re:
domestic assault and tracking mental illness vs. gun laws).

I.               Introduction: The American fascination with firearms/guns. Think about

references to pop-culture (music, movies, etc). End on the number of gun fatalities
and number of gun injuries in America.

II.             Background: Is the crisis of gun violence really about gun control? Perhaps
the best way to solve this crisis is to look at the specific situations of gun violence …

III.           Common Arguments for Gun Ownership

a.     Concession 1: Guns do not kill people, people kill people; Education about
guns and gun safety is needed to prevent accidental gun deaths. This may, indeed,
help; yet, stricter laws on gun ownership does not stop the violence itself. 
b.     Concession 2: Another common argument for gun control relates to self-
defense—i.e. police cannot protect citizens all the time. However, police
protection is not necessarily about guns and having a gun does not necessarily
mean one can protect themselves.

IV.           Exploratory Grounds for What Causes Gun Violence (each of the points

below would be their own paragraph(s))

a.     Grounds 1 | Self-Defense: statistics in home defense and gun ownership … /

how much of gun violence is related to self-defense? 

b.     Grounds 2 | Domestic Violence: look at the connection between gun

and domestic violence
 c.     Grounds 3 | Mental Illness and gun violence (can this even be prevented by
gun laws?)

d.     Grounds 3 | Related to Metal Illness, Self-Harm/Suicide and gun violence. 

V.             Other situations/contexts of gun violence (gangs? Crime?)

VI.           BIG PICTURE: would gun laws prevent the situations above? Maybe …
but perhaps it’s more about focusing on the causes for each of these …