Rhetorical Analysis 1.2

Cleaning the Barrel: A Rhetorical Analysis of Megan Weintraut’s article, “Government should create stricter gun laws”

Megan Weintraut, a senior mathematics major at Ithaca College, published her reasoned and lucid article, “Government should create stricter gun laws,” on January 26^th, 2011, in the student and faculty read newspaper, The Ithacan.  Weintraut describes her occasion for writing this article as the timely editorial in response to the current issue of the shootings in Arizona: “Events such as the Columbine High School shooting, the Virginia Tech shooting and most recently the Arizona shooting have forced us to address the issue” (par. 6).  This gives Weintraut the opportunity to display her purpose: to stress the dangers and to extrapolate towards all gun violence and the gun-related governing laws.  Weintraut’s compelling reaction piece is in support of increasing the restrictions of gun-bearing American citizens, and uses the rhetorical appeals and situation to create a persuasive and strong logos based argument.

Weintraut’s first rhetorical appeal used is her strongest and the most effective in her argument.  The logos used in this article cannot be denied, nor can it be ignored: “It [The Second Amendment] was established to create a nationwide civilian army during a time when Britain’s organized and professional army threatened the development of an independent America.  At this time, many families lived in isolation, and it was necessary to hunt and kill animals to supply food.  Guns were essential in protecting and providing for families” (par. 1).  The author clarifies how in a once desperate and determined country, guns were given out much more freely than the present to protect America as a whole.  Now, the United States can provide care and protection to its citizens by means of its multi-faceted government.  The need to own a gun is not essential for survival any more, and so the author moves to create stricter laws against these citizens who own guns just for the sake of owning them.  It seems almost as if she can tell what her critics are going to say next: ‘People need guns for protection.’  Weintraut silences her challengers swiftly with this quote from the third paragraph: “…Americans own significantly more firearms [than other developed nations], and this accounts for our higher rate of homicide.  The National Institute of Justice reported that in 2006 alone, firearms were involved in 68 percent of murders, and more than 90 percent of today’s gang-related homicides involve guns” (par. 3).  Weintraut explains further that violence in the media has an increasing effect on today’s children, setting bad examples at early ages.  But you cannot fault the media alone since there are no governmental laws that limit the number of guns that can be purchased at once.

The facts above are incontrovertible, just as Weintraut’s sound argument.  She incorporates a number of significant and effective facts that show that this argument is not just an opinion, but a documented and historical correlation between the amount of gun paraphernalia in a person’s life and the tendencies to use those guns.  All of Weintraut’s well-researched facts have a direct impact over the reader to sway towards not only understanding her outlook, but to believe it, too.  However, the author could have made a more logical flow if she had not illustrated in the second paragraph how safe and protected Americans are due to our government, and then in the next paragraph, brought light to the facts about gun-related homicide in America.  It made me as a reader question how effective the government was at protecting its citizens.

The second rhetorical appeal that Weintraut uses is ethos, or her credibility in writing this article.  Weintraut begins this article with The Second Amendment as passed by Congress, showing her readers right at the beginning that this is a serious topic and that under no circumstances is this to be interpreted as a joke.  Knowledge of and manipulation of your audience is vital to a successful and credible argument.  The author understands the readers of The Ithacan are mainly college students and faculty, and so she wraps up her argument with a comedy line from Chris Rock, which displays Weintraut’s practice of “insider language”.  This procedure of using comedy as well as acknowledgement and response shown in the next paragraph provides a common ground for all readers, including those who disagree with Weintraut’s claim, and therefore are more prone to harmonizing.  Although being a mathematics major does not exactly qualify her to be writing in this field, her beliefs are still valid, and being a senior who has published articles for The Ithacan instantly gives her the credibility needed for her pieces to be engaging and reading material for all readers.

The third rhetorical appeal, pathos, involves the use of emotion, and is imperative in any persuasive piece, especially when the topic covers the death of citizens, not to mention children.  Weintraut makes her readers understand the importance of this article by keeping the fear of loss or pain very real in their mind.  She does portray grim facts in the piece, but only to bring about an emotional reaction from her readers and captivate their attention.  In the third paragraph, Weintraut tells the disheartening evidence of the gun-related homicide percentage in America, and in the fifth paragraph, she shows evidence for the lack of government support for gun laws.  In the sixth paragraph, she tells the somber news of the Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Arizona shootings.  These are extremely effective in that the positive points are much more uplifting.  Weintraut reassures the audience by reinforcing the promise of gain throughout the article.  In the second paragraph, she presents the United States as a utopia in that our government is securing our complete safety and protection.  Readers would obviously rather live in a world where there is overall well-being than in a dangerous firefight, and so they conform to Weintraut’s claim.  

The use of acknowledgement and response is another way to sway readers to believe Weintraut’s claim and it involves the recognition of opposing views and the defense of her claim in spite of those views.  In this case, the acknowledgement is ‘yes, guns do kill numerous people daily and their destructive presence is felt around the world’ and the response to that is ‘there is always a silver lining’.  Weintraut promises her readers security in the enforcement of her proposed gun laws.  This security can be inferred as safety from unlawful citizens or it can be interpreted as being comfortable in America to live and raise a family.

Within the appeal of pathos, the author takes another path and uses emotional connections such as humor and satire to entice her readers: “Instead of minimizing the number of arms available to the public, the ‘sensible’ argument would be to eliminate gun violence by providing more guns to the public” (par. 3).  Here, she is insinuating that if everyone had access to guns and the ability to use them, everyone would get shot, and would die, and there would be no more problems.  Obviously, this is not the answer, but she calms the argument and reader down a little.  Weintraut also uses comic relief as per Chris Rock in the last line of her article: “‘Everybody is talking about gun control…I think we need some bullet control! ...If a bullet costs $5,000, there’d be no more innocent bystanders’” (par. 6).  Weintraut uses this quote to express the effect money has on citizens’ actions, when extrinsic motivators should not have a role in the choice of life or death for others at all.  On the other hand, the author could have influenced her readers to make a stand and an impression on our government even more if she had incorporated a call to action or an option for students and faculty to become involved.  This would create an emotional tie with the audience and Weintraut’s claim would reach farther in the long run.

This article’s use of well researched facts (logos), comical and serious quotes which relate to the reader (ethos), and emotion to persuade readers (pathos) all connect to form an excellent case for the intensification of gun laws in America.  This piece should wake up any passive readers to do their part in reducing the pain that must be suffered by family members of the victims of gun related deaths.  The Second Amendment is still enforced today, but then again, it is just an amendment.

Works Cited

Weintraut, Megan. "Government should create stricter gun laws." The Ithacan. January 6, 2011.

Online. January 26, 2011.