Misfires in the Gun Control Debate: Ethos, Pathos and Logos Essay

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Rhetorical Analysis on In gun control debate, the logic goes out the window.

This article talks about how the former president of America Barack Obama decided to take drastic action on the gun control measures and how Sen Dianne Feinstein introduced a ban on weapons. In the Aristotelian rhetoric model, Logos means to reason with your audience using proof and facts. The author of this article used proof and reasoned with the readers to persuade them reader on the problems of gun control in America. (Rottenberg and Winchell)

First and foremost, logos was used in two different categories in this article, the major and the minor premise. These two were used in the argument. The premise is used in the argument to persuade the readers to support gun control in America. The Major premise is to create a database that will help to speed up the tracking of guns that were found at crime scenes, it will be beneficial to protect the lives of the people. It helps to identify people who are involved in the killings by firearm. The minor premise talks about how the federal database will work on how they will work on speeding up its tracing of guns and how it will be beneficial to the public. This author used logos in a way that provided solutions and some benefits for gun control. The author also used logos by reasoning with the audience, using references, and providing the audience with facts to state his points. (Rottenberg and Winchell)

Pathos as used in the article was successful in convincing the audience to support gun control in America. Pathos is used to persuade people with an argument that emphasizes emotional feelings and values. The author gave an example in the article about the lives that could be saved using such a medium, he argued that isnt any life saved worth it or valuable? This was to put in all the emotion and values to properly prove his point on supporting gun control in America. The author used pathos to explain his point in several paragraphs and different sentences. (Rottenberg and Winchell)

Ethos simply means convincing the audience about the credibility of the author. The author talks about how he was the assistant treasury secretary overseeing the bureau. He admitted that he was unable to convince the NRA to believe that he was capable of regulating gun control because he was unable to understand the values that are associated with the ownership of guns in America which proved his ethos as he didnt do a background check before arranging a meeting. The meeting provoked the opposition and the congress took a drastic step towards the bureau and the proposal. (Rottenberg and Winchell)

Fallacies were present in the article. The opposition was not willing to see the truth of the matter. They made statements that had nothing to do with the proposal. There were fallacies such as the slippery slope argument and faulty logic. Mr Davies addresses this with the use of rhetorical questions which demands no answers but provides answers by themselves. The opposition also differentiated by the Nazis to gun control and they also used fallacies to throw the proposal out of the Congress, they also sent rhetorical notes that expressed their anger and dissatisfaction with the proposal made by the Congress and treasury, whereas giving declaration to the decision the congress had made on the proposal. (Rottenberg and Winchell)

In conclusion, Mr Davies expresses his disappointment and also believes that no proposals will stop all gun crimes. Also, the 1978 proposals could have prevented the illegal sales of guns. The author also talks about how gun control is not the answer to the issues of all the mass shootings. He also hopes that this time the debate on gun control will be more logical. He fully supports the need for gun control laws throughout the article. (Rottenberg and Winchell)

Works Cited

    1. Rottenberg, Annette T., and Donna Haisty Winchell. In Gun Control, Logic Goes out the Window. New York: Bedford, 2015. Article.

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