Unit 7: Types of Information: Periodicals

Hello, Reader!
  Next up, periodical articles: those pieces of publication, professionally or publicly positioned that are published and/or promulgated at predictable periods.
  But first, I would like to say this about Twitter: I find it a largely non-essential form of social media.  As a rule, I don't use it.  There have been a few moments when I have given it a whirl.  However, almost invariably someone tries to get chummy, then looks up my name on Facebook and tries to 'friend' me on the flimsy premise that we share an affection for cats or something, and I have to turn them down because that's nothing to base a friendship on.  5 minutes worth of interaction does not entitle just anyone to the privilege of viewing my private stuff.  Yes, I know how to navigate the quagmires of life, but that's because I have lived twice as long as most of those who use Twitter.  Nonetheless, I've gotta put those boundaries in place.  I'm not a trained therapist.
  Okay, I shall step off the soapbox and back into the assignment now.
 In step 3 of the assignment is says, "Refer to the comment I left in your blog post for Unit 6."  There was no comment so I am going to presume my research question and the Boolean logic string I proposed would be acceptable, at least for this initial try.
  I shall give ProQuest my business this trip.
  I entered "U.S. OR United States AND (federal OR state)" AND "(law OR regulation*)" AND "assault rifle* OR assault weapon*" in  separate lines as indicated.  I then went through the rest of the limiting fields and checked or unchecked blocks as I saw fit.  I included full text, in English, in the Continental U.S., and the document type could be any one of a number of things such as biographies, editorials or interviews.  I limited my initial search to magazine articles.
The search gave me "102135 results"* (no duplicates).
1. The magazine article I've chosen is as follows:
Andrew Cohen, The Atlantic. "The NRA is no Match for the Parent Lobby." National journal Dec 17 2012. ProQuest Research Library. Web. 26 Dec. 2012 .
  By way of annotation I shall now offer edited quotes from the article itself .
  "On Saturday afternoon, a grim state official, ... (stated) that the primary weapon used on the Sandy Hook school victims was not a handgun but rather a long gun, a Bushmaster .223 assault rifle, a formidable killing machine eschewed by most hunters, unwieldy for self-defense, similar to weapons used by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan ... Nancy Lanza loved guns, her friends told The Times, and would talk about her collection at local bars. * * * The shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary are first of all a tragedy of families, of the parents and grandparents who now are enduring the darkest moments of grief ... ."
  I thought this article would be relevant given recent events. However, the emotionally charged language used by the author in this piece clearly is employed to bias the reader toward increases in gun control laws and regulations.  The article is not primarily meant to explore the topic.
  I shifted the focus of ProQuest to newspaper articles and got "315202 results"* (no duplicates).
2. The newspaper article I've chosen is as follows:
Higham, Scott, et al. "History of Gun Control in U.S. Portends a Bitter Fight Ahead." The Washington Post: A.1. Dec 23 2012. Los Angeles Times; National Newspapers Core; The Washington Post. Web. 26 Dec. 2012 .
  Again I'll offer an annotation, but this one is gleaned from the abstract of the article.
  "The ideological chasm was on full display in Washington on Friday when ...Wayne LaPierre held a take-no-prisoners news conference in which he called for a federal program to put armed guards in every school in the country, saying, "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." First comes a shocking event, then calls for action, then prolonged legislative battles, and at the end of it all a new law might come crawling out of Congress so enfeebled by exemptions that it has limited effect in the real world."
  This piece is a little better researched than the magazine article, but again it would seem to be slanted toward inflammatory language.  Nonetheless, it is carried in the Washington Post which has a reputation for accuracy and comprehensiveness.  As such I would consider it a worthy candidate for inclusion.
  I then reconfigured ProQuest's advanced search to look for a research article.  It was important to click peer reviewed to ensure I had a good primary source that was approved of by others in the field.  I changed the Source type to Scholarly Journal, adjusted the Document type to reflect what one could anticipate in a Scholarly Journal, and clicked on Search.
  I was rewarded with "842 results"* (no duplicates).
  Here I wanted to pay attention to timeliness.  There were a great many good primary sources, but I needed one that was more recent to reflect the current state of the legal atmosphere.
3.  The Scholarly Journal article I've chosen is:
Barlow, E. G. "United States v. Reese and Post-Heller Second Amendment Interpretation." Brigham Young University Law Review 2012.2 (2012): 391-406. ProQuest Research Library. Web. 26 Dec. 2012.
  This would appear to be a very nice primary source.  It is current, being published December 2012, it has been peer reviewed by those responsible on the staff of Brigham Young University Law Review, among others, the author's name and academic credentials are clearly spelled out at the bottom of the article, and it's sources are cited by way of extensive footnotes throughout.  Further, for me at least, it is very relevant because it discusses domestic violence issues and the laws that appertain thereto in various states.
  In conclusion of this blog post I would like to say that I am pleasantly pleased with the amount of learning I do in this course.  This time I learned to differentiate between and evaluate various print and online sources, including newspaper articles, magazine articles, and scholarly journal articles.  Boolean logic is nothing new to me, but using it to conduct a productive search has been fascinating.  I look forward to finishing this course and doing further research into my future book projects.