Why Gun Control Won T End Mass Shootings Analysis
New York Times best selling author, radio host, and Fox News contributor, Tammy Bruce, wrote an article called “Why Gun Control Won’t End Mass Murders.” Bruce’s purpose is to inform readers that gun control laws are not going to stop murders from occurring. She adopts a grim tone in order to get her readers to think about why the gun laws are the way they are. For years the government has been trying to enforce gun laws and yet murders rates are not decreasing. Some points Bruce addresses include mass shootings, liberals, and the Mayo Clinc’s statistics towards drugs. Tammy Bruce was not successful in getting her point across. Tammy Bruce believes people should look at the underlying causes. Instead of just looking at how the gun laws are now and thinking about how they need to improve they should think about how you can’t control a person and what they do. I feel as if in Bruce’s
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article she had more weaknesses than strengths. The first one being when she attacked Hillary Clinton in the second paragraph on the first page. “At about 7:03 a.m. EDT, as the East Coast was waking up to the horrific news of the shooting in Las Vegas, Hillary Clinton was ready at the smartphone” (Bruce). Later she went on to attack liberals. “For liberals, this obsession with gun control reverses any progress we could make as it’s seen as “the solution” when nothing could be further from the truth” (Bruce). People could find this offensive and would instantly stop reading at that part of the article. At some points, (very rarely) there were some good facts. In the eighth paragraph on the second page Bruce found some statistics from the Mayo Clinic. “Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug, and more than half take two” (Mayo Clinic). This shows that the people who get the guns to murder others most likely have an issue of some sort. While writing this article Bruce did not use very good organizational skills. The paragraphs skip around and have no good order to them. Because of her lack of organization and order this makes the article weak and confusing. Tammy Bruce was not successful in getting her point across. Through these unsuccessful points using ethos, pathos, and logos somewhat saved her writing. Even though Bruce is a credible author due to her background this article did not prove it. After reading the entire thing there was only one reliable source mentioned. Her ethos was not the strongest, but I guess she got to incorporate a sneak peak of it. Tammy Bruce also seems to love using the emotional side of writing known as pathos. She tries to hit everyone in the heart strings with the Vegas shooting talk, but quickly changes gears when bringing up Hillary Clinton. Lastly, Bruce tries to catch the readers attention by using big names such as Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Mayo Clinic, etc. to act as if she knows what is going on in order to connect to the audience. Bruce could’ve done a better job using these three important writing tactics. In the article, “Why Gun Control Won’t End Mass Murder,” Bruce uses many devices and fallacies.
First, Bruce uses tone to emphasize her thoughts. “Tone is a general character or attitude of a place, piece of writing, situation, etc.” as said by Dictionary.com. The depressing tone used made her article more memorable leaving the readers with a grim sense of feeling making it successful. Next, Bruce used alliteration to make her writing more interesting. As said by Dictionary.com, “Alliteration is the occurring of the same sound.” In the article Bruce used the terms “mass-murder” and “new normal”. These terms made the piece stronger because they were used right and were strong terms. Lastly, she used some fallacies such as ad hominem. “An ad hominem is directed against a person rather than the position they were maintaining” (Dictionary.com). Bruce used this fallacy while attacking Hillary Clinton for her tweets. Using this kind of a fallacy was successful because it got Bruce’s point across. Without using these devices and fallacies Bruce’s article would not have been strong
enough. Through Tammy Bruce’s sometimes harsh and somewhat defensive writing she may have gotten her point across. For many readers they may have stopped reading within the first few paragraphs making this article pointless. Overall, this writing was not successful. For Bruce’s credentials and background I felt as if this article could’ve been a lot better.
article she had more weaknesses than strengths. The first one being when she attacked Hillary Clinton in the second paragraph on the first page. “At about 7:03 a.m. EDT, as the East Coast was waking up to the horrific news of the shooting in Las Vegas, Hillary Clinton was ready at the smartphone” (Bruce). Later she went on to attack liberals. “For liberals, this obsession with gun control reverses any progress we could make as it’s seen as “the solution” when nothing could be further from the truth” (Bruce). People could find this offensive and would instantly stop reading at that part of the article. At some points, (very rarely) there were some good facts. In the eighth paragraph on the second page Bruce found some statistics from the Mayo Clinic. “Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug, and more than half take two” (Mayo Clinic). This shows that the people who get the guns to murder others most likely have an issue of some sort. While writing this article Bruce did not use very good organizational skills. The paragraphs skip around and have no good order to them. Because of her lack of organization and order this makes the article weak and confusing. Tammy Bruce was not successful in getting her point across. Through these unsuccessful points using ethos, pathos, and logos somewhat saved her writing. Even though Bruce is a credible author due to her background this article did not prove it. After reading the entire thing there was only one reliable source mentioned. Her ethos was not the strongest, but I guess she got to incorporate a sneak peak of it. Tammy Bruce also seems to love using the emotional side of writing known as pathos. She tries to hit everyone in the heart strings with the Vegas shooting talk, but quickly changes gears when bringing up Hillary Clinton. Lastly, Bruce tries to catch the readers attention by using big names such as Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Mayo Clinic, etc. to act as if she knows what is going on in order to connect to the audience. Bruce could’ve done a better job using these three important writing tactics. In the article, “Why Gun Control Won’t End Mass Murder,” Bruce uses many devices and fallacies.
First, Bruce uses tone to emphasize her thoughts. “Tone is a general character or attitude of a place, piece of writing, situation, etc.” as said by Dictionary.com. The depressing tone used made her article more memorable leaving the readers with a grim sense of feeling making it successful. Next, Bruce used alliteration to make her writing more interesting. As said by Dictionary.com, “Alliteration is the occurring of the same sound.” In the article Bruce used the terms “mass-murder” and “new normal”. These terms made the piece stronger because they were used right and were strong terms. Lastly, she used some fallacies such as ad hominem. “An ad hominem is directed against a person rather than the position they were maintaining” (Dictionary.com). Bruce used this fallacy while attacking Hillary Clinton for her tweets. Using this kind of a fallacy was successful because it got Bruce’s point across. Without using these devices and fallacies Bruce’s article would not have been strong
enough. Through Tammy Bruce’s sometimes harsh and somewhat defensive writing she may have gotten her point across. For many readers they may have stopped reading within the first few paragraphs making this article pointless. Overall, this writing was not successful. For Bruce’s credentials and background I felt as if this article could’ve been a lot better.