This is a academic journal describing the “historical development of gun control laws and their relation to mental illness.” The journal goes into detail describing the “longstanding prohibitions of firearm possession by the mentally ill.” Several laws and, court cases dealing with gun control are described in detail. The Brady Act, The SAFE Act, The Sulivan Act etc…, are all explained in their original historical contexts to the reader. The author of the journal claims that focusing on mental illness and mass shootings can harm individuals who suffer from mental illness indirectly. “In addition to deflecting the gun-control debate from the broader problem, a focus on mental illness and mass shootings can make matters worse by stigmatizing…show more content… This journal was written by Matthew Gamsin, a J.D. Candidate from the University of Southern California School of Law. Gamsin makes connections between mental illness and gun violence, while giving a unbiased history of gun control legislation in America. The journal’s strong validity comes from Gamsin’s well researched information on the many laws and court cases pertaining to gun control. It’s reliability comes from the collection of articles the journal borrows from in terms of information. Each law’s history is described in detail with well researched information. The information for each law is supported by one of the articles listed as a source by the journal. The source credibility for the journal itself is quite strong, but the credibility for each individual source the journal uses varys. As a whole, I’d say that the journal is more then credible enough to be used as a source on its own. The journal’s recency comes from the fact that it was written only two years ago, and as such the information contained within it still remains relevent today. Finding a academic journal talking about gun control using the UI Library search tool was pretty easy. There were plenty of suitable journals that I could have used aside from this one. I would definitely use this journal as a source for a speech, if just for it’s extremely detailed descriptions of several pieces of gun control legislation. Gamsin does an excellent job of compiling this information into one cohesive
