Michael Moore used many different persuasive strategies to tackle the gun law arguments. His main persuasive strategy was using a deductive argument. He believe that their should be stricter gun laws. He supported his general argument with several details and examples that also used persuasive techniques like logos, ethos, and pathos.
For example, he used a logos example to support his main argument when he involved multiple statistics that showed how the United States had way higher hand-gun deaths than most places around the world. The article "A Land Without Guns" also mentioned several hand-gun death statistics comparing Japan to the United States. In 2008, the United States had over 12 thousand firearm-related homicides and Japan only had 11 firearm-related homicides. Using logos, Michael Moore was able to provide proof to people that the facts show that there is a problem in the United States since other countries don't have the same struggle with gun related killings. This is a good persuasive strategy because people can't argue facts; they are the truth.
Michael Moore also used pathos in his examples to help support his main argument. He showed footage of the Columbine High School shooting which emotionally affects people as they are watching. It makes them fearful and wanting to help the students that are seen in the videos. Also, emotion is expressed with the shooting of the six year old in Flint, MI. When people hear that a little girl was shot they immediately feel attached because they think about all the possible accomplishments and life goals that girl could have achieve and experience. Teachers were shown crying in the video also which makes the viewer emotionally connected and concerned. Overall, using patho examples to support his general argument was a good idea to form a meaningful connection between the argument and the people he wanted to persuade.
Lastly, Michael Moore used a lot of etho examples. Each of his interviews dealt with a person who shared a specific view on gun laws. Those people may or may not have valued the gun law but they all had specific values and beliefs of how guns should be represented in America. For example, the president of anti-gun law club clearly showed his values of having a loaded gun in his household. He believed that the gun provided a sense of safety even though he was never using it and had never been affected by a crime.
Overall, the persuasive techniques that Michael Moore used in this documentary were very helpful in supporting his main argument of having more gun laws. He showed both sides of the argument but used great rhetorical strategies to show that his argument was the better one. I personally liked how he connected the gun laws to interesting events that have really affected our nation and also how he included many different facts that not a lot of Americans are aware of. This documentary definitely provided me with a clearer vision of my views on guns and gun laws in the United States.
I completely agree with your view on the persuasion to tackle to gun law argument. By getting point of views and statistics about the stories, he pulled in the audience to make it believable. I do have to disagree with the use of pathos. I didn’t believe that he used as much emotional connection as he should have. There could have been much more comments and emotions of the tragic incidences like the 6 year old shooting. Instead of having multiple guys babbling about their right to own a gun, there could have been much more emotional ties to keep the movie more alive.
ReplyDelete