Do Armed Citizens Stop Mass Shootings?

This post is for Juniors only.

We're going to spend the day looking at an essay based on research. Your first task is to read the Slate essay entitled Do Armed Citizens Stop Mass Shootings?  You'll notice that throughout the essay are links to articles that support the author's claims.

The next step is to copy and past the following questions into a Word document:


1.  What is the essay's guiding question?


2.  Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas said on Fox News on Sunday, “I wish to God she had had an M-4 in her office.” What is the rest of this quotation?


3.  In the second paragraph,the author provides three examples of armed civilians stopping violent perpetrators. Summarize each of these examples in one sentence each.

A.

B.

C.


4. According to the essay, what are more common than armed civilians stopping violent perpetrators?


5. "When a shooter entered an AT&T store in 2010 in a small New York town with a list of six employees he planned to kill and shot one of them, a shopper who was an off-duty officer drew his .40 caliber handgun and killed the man." Was the off-duty police officer required to carry his gun at the time?


6. "An investigation by Mother Jones concluded that no more than 1.6 percent of mass shootings were ended by armed civilians." Name the title and author of the source of this information.


7. "Gun advocates argue that many mass murderers target 'gun-free' zones." According to the National Review Online, in what countries did the three worst K–12 school shootings take place until the Newtown horror?


8. What is the answer to the essay's guiding question, and is this answer found at the beginning or end of the essay?

Your final task is to answer the questions. Here are a few tips. You can copy and paste answers directly into your document from the sources. You will find some of the answers in the Slate essay, but you will also find some of the answers in the articles to which the Slate essay links. Be sure to read through the links as well as the essay itself.

When you are done, save, print, and hand it your Word document.