As issues of crime and race again came into the national spotlight during the 1990s, many social scientists and communications scholars sought to study the portrayal of racial minorities within news media. Numerous studies documented the high rate at which persons of color were typically portrayed as violent or dangerous in newspapers and television.

From the Scholars Strategy Network, written by Allison Dwyer Emory, Cornell University

Although there is constant theoretical debate about the Second Amendment and the regulation of firearms in the United States, little concrete data has been gathered on the sociological and demographic dynamics at the source of sales — the licensed dealers and pawnbrokers from whom most Americans obtain guns.