Rhetoric of Gun Control and Gun Rights Arguments Throughout “On the Rhetoric of Second Amendment Remedies”, Brett Lunceford portrays the effects of speakers who use violent rhetoric in their speeches against gun control. Lunceford scrutinizes the rhetorical strategies used by those speakers and how they tie into their means of persuasion. He examines the harmful effects of using certain persuasive techniques on Americans. He focuses primarily on two gun-rights advocates and their use of violent rhetoric. The first speaker Lunceford writes about is Sarah Palin. He states she uses violent rhetoric while advocating gun rights in one of her speeches when she says, “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!”. Lunceford includes the backlash Palin received …show more content…
In the essay “Rhetorical Studies and the Gun Debate: A Public Policy Perspective”, the effects of poor rhetorical leadership will bring up current events like speeches made every day by political officials and will make the reader question how much they actually trust their own leaders. I will use the trust of the government as a starting point to bounce values off of and explain why Americans values such things and how it came to be. In “Rhetorical Studies and the Gun Debate: A Public Policy Perspective”, the author focuses more on persuading the audience to participate in the rhetorical debates instead of going into more detail about the rhetoric used. In my essay I will explain the values and myths behind their mistrust in the government and the lack of intervention in the corruption of the government. In “On the Rhetoric of Second Amendment Remedies”, Lunceford seems to overlook why the violent rhetoric actually contributes to violence in America. I would go into detail on the values that lie behind both the speakers need to use such rhetoric and the American people’s need to engage in violent behavior because of the speech. Throughout my paper, both essays will be useful in developing starting points for my analysis and provide great points to bounce my own ideas off
Guns need to be controlled. From the mass shooting in Newton, Connecticut that killed twenty-seven people, twenty of whom were faultless children at Sandy Hook Elementary, to nine people gunned down during Bible study in Charleston, South Carolina at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, guns have proven to be an extreme political problem. In 2011, former Arizona congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords became a victim of gun violence, along with eighteen other guiltless people. She was shot at point blank range in the head while campaigning outside of a Safeway franchise in suburban Tucson, Arizona. Lucky enough to have a second chance at life, Giffords found the motivation to tackle the law of purchasing and owning a gun.
Part 2 of our course focused on the analysis of a wide range of political speeches and on the use of rhetorical devices. More specifically, we have studied the debate on gun violence and how different politicians presented their point of view either in defence of or against gun legislation. For this task, I decided to take on the role of Senator Christopher Murphy and to discuss the ongoing problem of weak gun control in the U.S.A. by using a political speech. This text type, written to be conveyed at the Senate after the Parkland, Florida mass shooting, best suits my intentions , since it would be likely for the topic to be discussed in the two Houses after the tragedy. It makes use of ethos, given the senator’s personality and his long history as a
Wuertenberg uses examples of slave periods to illustrate how gun ownership equaled power and suggest how white men wanted to ensure gun ownership exclusively for them. In conclusion, Wuertenberg argues that guns are a symbol of power that through history have become more efficient when it comes to “Making America Great Again”. The rhetorical strategies used by Nathan Wuertenberg are effective, because they help support his argument and explain how white man depend on guns to believe their powerful and have authority over
When debating the wisdom of the Constitution’s Second Amendment, the media tends to start from the presumption that the question is purely scientific, and that the answers can — and should — be derived from statistical analyses and relentless experimentation. This approach is mistaken. The right of the people to keep and bear arms is not the product of the latest research fads or exquisitely tortured “data journalism,” but a natural extension of the Lockean principles on which this country was founded. It must be protected as such. The Declaration of Independence presumes that all men enjoy certain inalienable rights, among them “life” and “liberty.”
“Our Blind Spot about Guns” Rhetorical Analysis Essay American Journalist, Nicholas Kristof, in his essay, “Our Blind Spot about Guns”, addresses that if only guns were regulated and controlled like cars, there would be less fatalities. Kristof’s purpose is to emphasize how much safer cars are now than in the past, while guns do not have the same precautions. He constructs a compelling tone in order to convince the reader that the government should take more control on the safety of guns and who purchases them. Kristof builds credibility by successfully exerting emotional appeals on the audience, citing plausible statistics, and discussing what could possibly be done to prevent gun fatalities. Kristof begins his essay by discussing how automobile
“Sometimes there are no answers from the outside in,” said President Clinton, “sometimes all the answers have to come from values and the stirrings and the voices that speak to us from within.” (Clinton). This statement is effective to call the audience to action and make a difference; it has the ability to inspire and empower the audience. This is how President Clinton is able to use With this cocktail of methods and arguments, President Clinton’s speech is able to rally supporters for his cause of gun control and community. His facts provide a backbone for his speech, to validate his points.
Throughout his work, Kristof uses strong sources that strengthen his credibility and appeal to ethos. He references a book, A Biography by Michael Waldman, the president of of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. He quotes Waldman as stating, “Gun control laws were ubiquitous.” He then includes in his own work, “As a distinguished former congressman, Robert Cousins, put in 1910:
Rhetorical Analysis Essay on The Case For More Guns In “The Case for more Guns”, the author Jeffrey Goldberg staff writer for the Atlantic, implies why more people with concealed carry permits could keep American citizens safer. Goldberg’s purpose is to inform the reader that guns in the hands of criminals are dangerous, but also that more people with the proper training to handle a gun could keep us safer. Goldberg’s points are valid and based on events that have occurred and if a reader is not pro-2nd amendment they could be persuaded with the facts that he points out.
By the end, I had a strong distaste for Mr. LaPierre and what he has contributed to the gun debate. Nevertheless, LaPierre uses a tactic that has had extreme success. LaPierre uses fear to progress his agenda. In this case, LaPierre attempts to convince the public that the government is trying to take their guns and their rights. He threatens that this is a treacherous path leading towards tyranny and a police state.
Lastly, from ProConorg Headlines, in “Should More Gun Control Laws be Enacted”, John R. Lott Jr. states, “Even Senator Dianne Feinstein, a gun control advocate, carried a concealed gun when her life was threatened and her home attacked by the New World Liberation Front in the 1970s”. In other words the article is saying even a Senator, who is against gun control, is using a gun for defence because
He again says that although the solution isn’t perfect, it is another step towards resolving the issue, leaving the idea of improvements to gun control laws fresh in the audience's mind. Utilizing the rhetorical device of repetition, allows Obama to keep this idea in the audience's mind, with the goal of persuading the audience to come to terms with his idea of tightening gun control. In conclusion, by utilizing the rhetorical devices of the appeal of ethos and repetition, President Obama was able to deliver a strong speech on gun control, and achieve his goal of persuading individuals to join him on the road to strengthening laws on gun
This visual poster advertisement by MomsDemandAction has raised concerns about gun safety in America in light of the increasing amount of school shootings and mortalities every year. Due to this, more and more parents are getting concerned to send their children to school in fear of what their fate might be, this advertisement is trying to combat this issue by attempting to get America to have more gun sense. This visual advertisement is subtly attacking the idea of bringing more gun sense to America by attacking the government for being ignorant about the rising number of mortalities every year due to school shootings because the classroom must be a safe place where kids are able to study without fear of death. The author has applied three
In today’s society, one of the most alienating issues in American politics is gun control. More specifically, the issue is whether or not guns should be banned in the United States. Some people would say that guns should be banned because it would reduce crime as a whole and keep citizens safer. These people, enthusiasts of stricter gun laws, fear being safe in their country where there are so many people who have access to guns. Opponents of this argument, however, also fear losing safety.
Nicolas Kristof uses many rhetorical devices to make points in his piece titled, Our Blind Spot about Guns. He compares the attributes of gun safety to the attributes of car safety and attempts to make a point that the government should regulate guns in the same way cars are regulated In this piece, Kristof tries to convince the reader that regulating guns, the same way cars are regulated, will an effective way to decrease the amount of deaths by guns every year. In the beginning of his writing, he lays out a factual calculation of how many Americans died annually before cars were regulated (161). He then uses a rhetorical device called an analogy when he states, “Yet, instead, we built a system that protects us from ourselves.
Debates over gun control,a topic related to the security of the whole nation, have never stopped. Both advocates and opponents have solid grounds to support their arguments. The advantages of gun control, as claimed by advocates, are as follows: The first and most important: By curbing access by criminals, juveniles and other high risk individuals, it can efficiently reduce the crime rate, especially violent crimes.