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Essays about sandy hook elementary shooting
Debate on gun control
Essay about sandy hook school shooting
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In the tragedy of Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, Adam Lanza, the shooter, murdered 20 children and 6 teachers. Some people look at this event as a terrible tragedy because it struck them emotionally that 20 children had died. While others look at this event as a tragedy because it is rare, one of kind and a freak accident that definitely do not happen every day, or even years. According to nces.ed.gov, the chance of a random shooting to occur at any elementary school in the U.S is 1 in 88,962, and the chance of any elementary child to get killed is roughly around 1 in 23 million, this is less than the chance of hitting a jackpot for an average lottery which is at 1 in 15 million. Wayne LaPierre, who is the National Rifle Association’s vice president, addressed the shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary in his speech “Transcript of speech on Newtown Shooting.” In his speech, he uses excessive amount of pathos to arouse his audience emotionally, and uses strong language with aggressive demeanor to convince the audience to agree with what he has to say. On the other hand, Sam Harris, an author of bestselling books and had his work discussed in major journals such as New York Times and Scientific American. In his article “The Riddle of the Gun”, he provides many statistical values and facts to neutralize people’s feelings towards the shooting. In this paper, I will compare each writer’s strategies and explain its effectiveness. In both articles respectively, the strategies LaPierre and Harris uses are effective towards their own audience but would not have worked the other way around. In LaPierre’s speech, one of the main strategies he uses is pathos while Harris uses logos, although they both worked well to their specific audie...
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...ss shooting or homicide, a human life or lives are lost. Although both of LaPierre’s and Harris’ compare and contrast strategy have worked well to their respective audiences, Harris’ comparison is more effective towards a wide audience than LaPierre’s because he provides a logic that is unanimously accepted by people.
One of the other main strategy LaPierre use in his speech is rhetorical questions, while Harris use it far less. A rhetorical question is a question designed to have one correct answer. LaPierre uses it to force his audience to think alike and agree with him and Harris uses it to establish his views and opinions to show the audience where he stands on the issue.
Last but not least, Harris did a better job in prolepsis than LaPierre since he had none. Prolepsis is when the author anticipates the opposition’s best argument and addressing it in advance.
Pathos is the author's use of emotions and sympathy to urge the audience to agree with his or her standpoint. And lastly, logos apply sound reasoning (logic) to attract the typical ideas of the audience and to prove the author's point of view. "Lockdown" by Evans D. Hopkins is a fine example of an author using these appeals to persuade his audience. Hopkins uses of the three appeals are easy to locate and relate to throughout the entire passage. He undoubtedly uses rhetoric to try and keep his audiences focused and to persuade them to feel the way he does about the treatment of prisoners.
Consequently, “In recent years, tragedies involving mass killings in the US, such as The Aurora, CO movie theatre shooting in July 2012, and the Newton, CT has intensified social focus on trying to understand the dynamics and contributing factors that underlie such events”(Towers 2). Both of these shooting left the public shocked and concerned. As an article says one of the main concerns was “concern with the publics understanding of the shooting specifically who or what did the public blame” (Joslyn, and Do...
Patrick Henry uses rhetorical questions to make his audience contemplate about the answers to those questions. When an audience member replies with an answer, this will further the support for Henry’s argument. The supporting evidence from this answer will help develop his claim even more, therefore making his argument additionally valid. Patrick Henry also uses rhetorical questions to cause compelling reactions in his audience that will hopefully bring them to his side of the
Sandy Hook is an elementary school in Connecticut that was invaded by a shooter, Adam Lanza. Twenty-eight people were shot and killed, twenty of them being children between the ages of five and ten. Before Lanza arrived, he shot and killed his mother who was a teacher at this school. The article was published the day of the shooting to the Washington Post. The article was written announce what had actually happened during this tragic event. The article was directed towards parents with kids and adults to inform everyone on the catastrophe and to hopefully make schools as safe as they could possibly be. Additionally the author also states that this is not the right time to try and discuss the gun control laws.
To begin with the unemotional Cooke apathetically uses Kathleen Parker's quote that, “Nothing proposed in the gun-control debates would have prevented the mass killings of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School” (Cooke 1). While Gopnik on the other hand beautifully captures his audience in an emotional storm just thinking about dead students cellphones ringing while their terrified parents on the other end, “...desperate hope for a sudden answer and the bliss of reassurance, dawning grief - is unbearable” (Gopnik 1). But back comes debbie downer Cooke who surprisingly thinks that, “To wish to prevent Sandy Hook is an admirable and human instinct” (Cooke 5). However he then goes on to explain that chasing a solution will not fix anything. Leaving his audience will a sense of hopelessness that it could ever get
The tragedy that happened in Newton, Connecticut swept the world with a variety of emotions. Many individuals became angry or saddened by the tragedy. I think more of the individuals were angry of what happened to those 20 innocent children. Parents send their children to school thinking that they are safe but in this case ended in tragedy. I am going to discuss similarities and differences between two articles. I am also going to discuss how this shooting is a symbolic crime, how likely policy changes will be enacted and how unlikely they are to be enacted.
Another way to look at the similarities and differences of Mairs and Baldwin is to look at the way they use ethos, pathos, and logos in their essays. Ethos, pathos, and logos are rhetorical strategies that use an appeal to credibility, emotion, and logic. Both authors have a good amount of ethos because Mairs lives with Multiple Sclerosis and Baldwin lived during the Jim Crow Era. Mairs presents her medical profile and Baldwin talks about growing up in the Jim Crow Era, giving them both logos.
In the cases of school shootings that took place at Columbine High School, Sandy Hook Elementary, Virginia Tech University and Northern Illinois University, the media highly publicized the fact that the perpetrators were avid video gamers, but why is this important? The media want’s your attention and they are more than willing to say almost anything to get it. They reported that the perpetrators were avid gamers with the implication that there is a well establish connection between the two when there is not. They exploit the fear of parents and concerned citizens by not including relevant corresponding information in order to leave you more interested lea...
...ssibly help more than harm. Experience has taught me that when a child walks in fear of expressing their feelings they bottle up all of their emotions; simply because they’re afraid of the consequences. Teaching children to appropriately use and appreciate violent media will help them build confidence, “power, and selfhood.” (Jones 287) He successfully executes the use of rhetorical methods and offers solutions to the opposing viewpoint. Jones’ consistent use logical and emotional appeal entices the reader and effectively persuades; this clearly substantiates his deserving of the top persuasiveness prize.
On December 14th 2012, just 11 days before Christmas, an awful tragedy happened in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty-six people were shot at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. This awful event left a lot of unanswered questions and rumors about that day. The reason for that is because the shooter killed himself after shooting twenty young children and six adults. This tragedy open the eyes of everyone; made you want to hug your loves one just a little tighter, appreciate what you still have and never take a day for granted. Even our president Barack Obama felt the pain of all those who lost their loved ones in this event. He insured everyone that he will do everything in his power to make sure a tragedy like this will not happen again. However, did you know that there have been over 44 school shootings since the tragedy of Sandy Hook Elementary shooting? I know as a future teacher and mother I want to make sure my children are safe in this world and even at school. I want to be able to make a difference in this issue and have some knowledge to have I can do that. The society should understand what really happen during the Sandy Hook event, the reasons behind why school shootings/violence are rapidly increasing each year, and have some knowledge about what we, as a society, can do to help in order for us to start seeing a decrease of these events.
•Rhetorical question: Used in this particular rant to raise an inquiry up in the audience’s mind. The question is not expected to be answered, yet is a persuasion that enables the audience to comprehend what the rant is about. For instance, when Rick says, “did the Liberals get elected or were the Tories thrown out?” is a rhetorical question.
In June of 2016, the deadliest mass shooting in the United States happens at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. In the aftermath of Sunday morning when covering the shooting, News 13 a local news channel from Orlando used pathos in their news to create fear about terrorism to the audience. On the other hand, The New York Times used eyewitness videos and expert interviews to appeal logic.
Retrieved November 1, 2013, from Info Please: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html Levin, J. (2012, December 19). How to prevent school shootings. Retrieved November 1, 2013, from The Boston Globe: http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/12/19/podium-newtown/8RBiAPBjlYG9N9LyC2RVyM/story.html Robertz, F. J. (2012, December 12). Deadly Dreams: What Motivates School Shootings? Retrieved November 15, 2013, from Scientific American:
Over the past years media has been overwhelmed with news about mass shootings happening around America and if mental illness is the primary cause of the violent act. On February 2014, Jonathan M. Metzl and Kenneth T. MacLeish published their article “Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, and the Politics of American Firearms” in the American Journal of Public Health that addresses the issue that mental illness has very little to do mass shootings which is commonly used on the aftermath of the shooting
The television comes on everyone puts their hand to their mouth in shock. Another mass killing has happened. As a nation we feel this is happening more than it used to, but how much is it really happening? The images of Newtown, Aurora and Virginia Tech are burned into the minds of Americans. Since 2006, there has been more than 200 mass killings in America (Overburg). Newtown, Aurora and Virginia Tech capture the nations attention, but similar bloody scenes happen with alarming frequency and much less scrutiny (Overburg). The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) qualify a mass killing as the death of four people or more. With gun control and mental illness becoming a large topic due to these mass killings USA Today set out to find out who commits these killings, the weapons they use and the forces that motivates them. USA Today examined FBI and local police data and found that mass killings in America happen far more often than the government reports. Also the circumstances surrounding the killings are far more particular than most people think.