Rhetorical Analysis
Introduction
The speech by president Barrack Obama on gun control was both emotional and forceful. He said he focused on doing everything possible to make Unites States free from gun violence. This was through his issuance of executive orders and plans requiring approval from the congress. The primary audience for the speech was the entire community concerned over the killings of children. “… bringing so many different voices to the table, because while reducing gun violence is a complicated challenge, protecting our children from harm shouldn’t be a divisive one”. Parents felt disheartened and concerned about the security of their children even in learning institutions. Being that these are children without any atrocities, the situation presenting difficult aspects that people could not understand and the president had the responsibility of taking control and addressing the occurrence. The secondary audiences were the gun providers. It was a situation laying squarely on the availability of guns within the community and the gun industry and industry related officials have the responsibility of creating a channel of distribution of guns. The logic for presenting the challenge to the gun industry rotates through the impending free circulation of guns without appropriate certifications. The speech on gun prevention was an affective one because it pointed on all its advantages. It was constructed to fit different audiences leaving it as a responsibility of the entire nation and a call for the proactive participation of the public from the president is the only means of eliminating the menace.
Unreasonable killing of children
In the speech, the president focused on the acts controlling gun violence and the recent massacres within the United States. This included the resent killings in Sandy Cook elementary school in Newtown, Conn. The killings, which took place in December 14, killed 20 children of the ages between 6 and 7. The intention for using such scenarios is to provoke emotional attachments to the need for creating controls in the dangers of gun violence across the community. The speech also touched on other areas like Chicago, which is his hometown and has reports of frequent murders rocking headlines.
Logical call for initiation of gun control
The speech presents the issue of gun violence as a societal concern and calls for the proactive participation of all citizens in creating a change regarding the problem. His speech followed a presentation of research findings looking for suggestion from related sources to gun violence on the best means of eliminating the menace. In the speech, the president is aware of the resistance he could receive from the community regarding banning of guns. However, he decides to use the logic of involving the gun industry participants to come up with suggestions of the best means of reducing violent incidences. This gives the responsibility to those involved with gun distribution and he gets the chance of challenging their intellectuality in being actively engaged in the process. He presents their recommendations within his speech and that makes people to see the need for controlling gun usage in the country.
Through employing of pathos, president Barrack Obama manages to present his case in an emotionally evoking strategy. He categorically invokes the memories of his audiences by reminding them of the fate that befell their families when he says that he is grateful to all and “… recognizing that we honor their memories in part by doing everything we can to prevent this from happening again”. Above this, he makes recognition of the kids who wrote to him pleading for a change declaring their love for the country and hoping for safety in the nation. This provocation of the concerns of the kids and their thoughts about the safety of the nation clearly indicates the heavy emotional needs children have and the concern the entire nation needs to create change regarding gun possession.
Parents should protect their children and the nation has an overall role for ensuring that the entire nation is safe. Children are the future and killing them is logically relative to killing the nation because the children would not have a chance for pursuing their dreams. This was not only an emotional but also a logic strategy for compelling the audience into considering the call for change from the children. It is a point that diverts attention from the call by the president and leads to a focus on the four children who waved and spoke their minds regarding the shootings in school. Through the innocence of their minds, the children represent their fellows who died in the event and the nation faces an emotional trigger created by an attachment to the grieving families for the need of an intervention regarding the gun violence issue.
He presents the logic of buying guns as necessary for background checks be it from a private or licensed dealer. This is supported by a good proportion of the American community according to researches and is a move uploaded by so many quarters as he even references the input of the former president Ronald Reagan in the call for banning military assault weapons. This follows the request of cooperation from congress on law enforcement efforts regarding gun control. Another logic he puts on the issue is on the downsizing of the police force. He finds it logical that in times of violence like the experience in the United States, it would be relevant to have more police on the look and that calls for employing more of them into the force.
Unethical gun ownership
In the employment of ethos, the speech explored the issue of gun possession, gun distribution and the responsibility for protection of life. Gun ownership has not been restricted as suggested in the speech. However, because of the growing threat of gun violence, the speech presents the need for controlling gun ownership and ensuring that gun owners conduct themselves with reasonable capacities and respect for lives. It is unethical to kill people aimlessly and more so, innocent children without any mistakes or atrocities against the gangs. The responsible usage of guns would be for ethically approved intentions and not aimless usage threatening the peace of existence within the society.
The speech relies on the professionalism and credibility of the taskforce represented by Joe Biden to present proposals to make gun control a reality. It is ethical for the government to use appropriate legislations to prevent violence even in the absence of guiding laws for the elimination of all offences and evils committed in the community. “…if there’s even one thing we can do to reduce this violence, if there’s even one life that can be saved, then we’ve got an obligation to try”. Through that, he takes an ethical responsibility for keeping guns out of the nation. His use of ethos opens a light to the concern the nation has on the safety of each individual under its jurisdiction. He does that by giving directives to schools, health institutions and mental institutions creating a need for strict background check before any issuance of guns. He challenges the ethics behind the negligence in conducting background checks on those buying guns blaming it to be that major cause for guns being in wrong hands leading to the rampant gun violence.
President Obama presents the urgency for intervention to his audience. He gives the statistics as 900 deaths from gun violence within a month and that leaves the need paramount desirable within the soonest possible time to avoid the increase of the occurrences. He goes further to challenge research institutions to conduct urgent studies on the causes of the epidemics of violence. This leaves the only credible move for the government to employ through the corporation for congress to be the due restriction of gun possession. He recognized the input of the congress and calls on them to act too by deliberating on the gun restriction proposals and acceptance of the need for background checks for gun buyers. The president’s speech is persuasive as he calls on the entire nation to be proactive in the protection of lives. He calls on the corporation of gun distributors in the facilitation of background checks and makes a humble request to congress to see the need for passing the law on gun possession. It is a literal persuasion for the recognition of the sense in the proposals as he asks for its acceptance and mentions evidences for the agreement of a good percentage of Americans looking upon the efforts of the government in protecting its people.
Conclusion
He talks of the tough decision on respecting the second amendment since it leaves loopholes for guns getting into the hands of criminals. He appreciates the law-abiding citizens who refrain from criminal actions even when they own guns. The president makes a logical appeal to the congress to put the interests of people ahead of all interests because of the compromise gun violence does to the safety of the nation. In his employment of the ethics of gun possession, he calls for mandatory background checks for all with intentions for owning guns. Further, this speech is an invocation of emotions of those directly affected by gun violence and the nation at large. He later places responsibility on the gun industry, congress and the nation saying that freedom comes with an obligation and each individual in the nation has a right to live.
Work Cited
Paulson, Scott. Retrieved From: http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-s-speech-on-gun control and-gun-violenceamerica-video 27th January 2013
