How to Analyze

an Argument’s

Pathos

Start with the

RhetoricalTriangle

Message Audience

Author

Message Audience

Author

Remarks from the NRA press

conference about the Sandy Hook shooting

http://goo.gl/zSuYs

Armed guards in every classroom Americans

Wayne LaPierre

What do we look for

when we analyze pathos?

Remember the three parts of pathos

Rhetorical figures

Appeals to emotion

Framing devices

First,let’s look as

specific rhetorical devices

Rhetorical Devices

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

Antithesis

Rhetorical Devices

With all the foreign aid the United States does, with all the money in the federal budget, can’t we afford to put a police officer in every

single school? Even if they did that, politicians have no business and no authority denying us the right, the ability, and the moral imperative to

protect ourselves and our loved ones from harm.

Anaphora

Rhetorical Devices

With all the foreign aid the United States does, with all the money in the federal budget, can’t we afford to put a police officer in every

single school? Even if they did that, politicians have no business and no authority denying us the right, the ability, and the moral imperative to

protect ourselves and our loved ones from harm.

Anaphora + Tricolon

Rhetorical Devices

I call on every parent. I call on every teacher. I call on every school administrator, every law enforcement officer in this country, to join with us and help create a national schools shield safety program to protect our children with the only positive line of defense that’s

tested and proven to work.

Anaphora + Tricolon

Then,framing

Reason

Pot will disproportionately hurt the lives of the poor and

dispossessed.

FramingRather than face -- rather than face their own moral failings the

media demonize lawful gun owners, amplify their cries for more laws, and fill the national media with misinformation and dishonest thinking that only delay meaningful action, and all but guarantee that the next

atrocity is only a news cycle away.

Media = liars, gun owners = truth tellers

FramingBut since when did “gun” automatically become a bad word? A gun in the hands of a Secret Service agent protecting our president isn’t a bad word. A gun in the hands of a

soldier protecting the United States of America isn’t a bad word. And when you hear your glass breaking at three a.m. and you call 911, you won’t be able to pray hard enough for a

gun in the hands of a good guy to get there fast enough to protect you.

guns = protection devices

FramingWe care about our president, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents.

Members of Congress work in offices surrounded by Capitol Police officers. Yet, when it comes to our most beloved, innocent, and vulnerable members of the American family, our

children, we as a society leave them every day utterly defenseless, and the monsters and the predators of the world know it, and exploit it.

we protect what we care about...

Appeal to Emotion

Appeals to Emotion

There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and stows violence against its own people. Through vicious, violent video games with

names like “Bullet Storm,” “Grand Theft Auto,” “Mortal Combat,” and “Splatterhouse.”

Appeal to disgust

Appeals to EmotionBut what if -- what if when Adam Lanza started shooting his way into Sandy Hook

Elementary School last Friday, he’d been confronted by qualified armed security? Will you at least admit it’s possible that 26 little kids, that 26 innocent lives might have been spared

that day? Is it so important to you (inaudible) would rather continue to risk the alternative? Is the press and the political class here in Washington D.C. so consumed by fear and hatred of the NRA and American gun owners, that you’re willing to accept the world, where real resistance to evil monsters is alone, unarmed school principal left to surrender her life, her

life, to shield those children in her care.

Appeal to fear

Appeals to Emotion

This is a time this is a day for decisive action. We can’t wait for the next unspeakable crime to happen before we act. We can’t lose precious time debating legislation that won’t work. We mustn’t allow politics or personal prejudice to divide us. We must act now for

the sake of every child in America.

Appeal to patriotism

Now, what do we want to

analyze here?

Take the parts and connect to the Rhetorical

Triangle

Wayne Lapierre in his remarks for the NRA at a December 21st press conference tried to reframe the debate about guns in society as necessary tools for self-protection.

Topic Sentence

As LaPierre imagines the media’s response to his argument, he uses a series of examples to demonstrate why guns are useful tools.

Set-up

But since when did “gun” automatically become a bad word? A gun in the hands of a Secret Service agent protecting our president isn’t a bad word. A gun in the hands of a soldier protecting the United States of America isn’t a bad word. And when you hear your glass breaking at three a.m. and you call 911, you won’t be able to pray hard enough for a gun in the hands of a good guy to get there fast enough to protect you.

We can see that all three examples are of people protecting valuable people with armed weapons. LaPierre’s major rhetorical hurdle here is that guns are associated in many minds with violence and murder. In order to counter that, he reframes the word “gun” as a protective device, one that good men need to resist the evil men. Guns provide us with us safety in an unsafe world. The natural fear that surrounds the circumstances of the Sandy Hook killings can only be countered by appealing to an action-movie imagery--secret service agents, war veterans, regular guy heroes.

LaPierre wants us to see guns as the solution rather than the problem to violence in America. His argument--as aggressive as the weapons he supports-- lacks any concession at all, but instead contends that only with a hyper-masculine re-arming of America will we be able to protect ourselves from the monsters who stalk us.

Other notes:

Changing the subject

Finding other villains

Ethos--honest law-abiders vs. corrupt Eastern-ers