In Timothy Hsiao’s journal entry “Firmin DeBrabander: Do Guns Make Us Free?”, the author reviews Firmin DeBrabander’s arguments on the controversy regarding the campus carry bill passed in several states, including Texas, which raised the question of whether campus carry is truly effective in decreasing gun violence on campus. In order to put the controversy into context it’s necessary to raise the question on whether the evidences DeBrabander provided were credible or not, and why or why not. To acquire answers to these questions, Hsiao’s entry is an important source to consider as it analyzes the errors in DeBrabander’s argument. The author believes that “DeBrabander’s critique of gun ownership is extremely narrow” and fails to consider and provide empirical data and other forms of evidence to support his argument, thus making it difficult to
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He gives credit to the author by claiming that he provides “a very unique approach to the question of gun rights” (Hsiao). However, following that, he introduces several reasons which decreases the credibility of DeBrabander’s argument. Hsiao finds DeBrabander’s argument to be shallow as it fails to include empirical data which are very relevant to the debate, such as the “analyzed county level data from 1977 to 2000, [which] found annual reductions in murder rates between 1.5 % and 2.3 % for each additional year that a right to carry law is in effect” (Hsiao). Furthermore, he states that DeBrabander could have balanced the lack of empirical data with the inclusion of viewpoints of experts on this subject to add credibility. With these reasons, Hsiao’s entry answers the question of whether or not the evidences provided by DeBrabander are credible or not by claiming the evidences to be unreliable. Hsiao expresses that due to the lack of factual evidence, DeBrabander’s argument is not very persuasive and “unacceptable for scholarly work”
He gives credit to the author by claiming that he provides “a very unique approach to the question of gun rights” (Hsiao). However, following that, he introduces several reasons which decreases the credibility of DeBrabander’s argument. Hsiao finds DeBrabander’s argument to be shallow as it fails to include empirical data which are very relevant to the debate, such as the “analyzed county level data from 1977 to 2000, [which] found annual reductions in murder rates between 1.5 % and 2.3 % for each additional year that a right to carry law is in effect” (Hsiao). Furthermore, he states that DeBrabander could have balanced the lack of empirical data with the inclusion of viewpoints of experts on this subject to add credibility. With these reasons, Hsiao’s entry answers the question of whether or not the evidences provided by DeBrabander are credible or not by claiming the evidences to be unreliable. Hsiao expresses that due to the lack of factual evidence, DeBrabander’s argument is not very persuasive and “unacceptable for scholarly work”