rhetorical analysis final revision

7/27/2019 Rhetorical Analysis Final Revision

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Natalie Green

October 22, 2013

WRD 103

Rhetorical Analysis Final Revision

Gun control has been a divisive issue in the United States, especially in light of

the most recent events in the Washington Navy Yard. Charles M. Blow is the author of

“A Ghastly Ritual Repeats Itself”, posted in the New York Times on September 18, 2013.

Although his article is posted in the New York Times this gives him no credibility to be

talking about congress and gun control. Even though he uses facts and examples Blow

does not have anything to show that he is credible. He highlights common knowledge

that anyone could go online and look up and adds none of his own research, nor does he

provide any information as to what in his background qualifies him to write on the

matter. Blow does not use Ethos at all, however he attempts to use Pathos and Logos but

either way his argument is still cowardly and he’s trying to use congress as a scapegoat

for why gun control is an issue.

Ethos is credibility and it is clear that Blow does not use Ethos to his advantage at

all. Based on this article he has no credibility. Blow does not provide any background

information, he states his opinions, but does not provide any insight into what makes him

qualified to write this article. To make himself more credible he could have answered

questions such as; what does he do for a living, has he ever worked in congress, has he

ever been personally affected by gun violence? All of these would have helped make his

article more convincing. It is clear that he does not prove to be credible however he

makes an attempt at proving his credibility by saying he does not generalize. However he



seems to be quite generalizing by stating things like “that would require courage and

commitment, qualities that sadly run a deficit in Washington.” Here he makes the

argument that people in congress do not want to stand up to gun control but he doesn’t

know that for sure. He gives no evidence for this though and he is just expecting his

readers to take his word for it. The way he states it shows that this is more or less his

opinion and there’s no evidence to support the claim. Therefore the reader cannot take

this as a true statement, congress might want to stand up to gun control however they

may not have the support of the people they represent. Also there are other things to

focus on in this world and issues are taken one at a time and the time for gun control will

come when it does but until then people need to view it as one small fish in the sea of

issues and understand that not everything gets changed instantly everything happens

overtime. Blow brings in statistics to validate his point and he shows the rhetoric of the

other side but while doing so he shoots it down as being a poor tactic. He also claims “the

facts don’t neatly line up with that line of reasoning.” Following this he lists a few

examples from reports but never completely ties them together with his own thoughts.

Trusting the author one hundred percent is difficult as he has not established a

background that would make him believable however he does make a valid statement and

has valid statistics to support his assertion.

Blow does use some Pathos by stating that, “from 1973 to 2012 there were more

than four million firearm injuries in America.” He’s trying to make the reader feel sorry

and sad about the fact that in those years’ four million people were injured by firearms.

However this is not a strong use of Pathos, he does not tell specific stories of whom any

victims were and just hearing numbers does not appeal to your emotions. Also it says



“injured” not killed which makes the statistic less appealing to your emotions because

people get injured everyday. It would be a fine line between using the examples to get a

point across and manipulating emotions. In this case with the one statement he did not

manipulate emotions, although this statistic is sad and surprising it does not really get to

you emotionally. Blow does not allow emotions to get in the way in this article he uses

evidence and facts to show that his point is logical and he does not allow emotions to

change your opinion he solely relies on the facts and because of that your emotions

cannot change your opinion because there really isn’t much in the article that would

appeal to your emotions.

Blow uses Logos by bringing in statistics but the statistics are weak and can easily

be found on Google. Blow uses lots of bits and pieces from different reports as his

statistics. However these reports are not hidden anyone can read them and see the full

argument of the report not just what Blow wants them to know. Blow then goes on to

abruptly ends the article saying “but that would require courage and commitment,

qualities that sadly run a deficit in Washington.” Ending the article this way leaves it

incomplete there is no support for why he feels as though they run a deficit and he’s

assuming that the reader will just agree with him regardless. He mentions how

“protection has replaced hunting as the No. 1 reason that people own guns.” He uses this

as his counter argument as to why people do not agree with gun control however he does

expand on this point and states more facts to support this side of the argument. However

he shoots down this side of the argument by saying that “the facts don’t neatly line up

with that line of reasoning.” For example he talks about how in 2008 there were 300,000

violent crimes involving firearms and only 108,000 defensive uses of firearms. He only



shows the negative side of this argument and leaves out the positive. Which is cowardly

because he knows bringing in the positive of this argument will weaken his overall

argument. However he does do a good job of including both arguments and explaining

them with statistics to the extent that he wanted too.

Based on what is stated in the article Blow is not credible to be discussing this

issue. He clearly outlines both sides of an argument which helps to show that he

somewhat knows what he is talking about however all his facts and statistics can be

found online and he does not have anything to make him more credible than the average

person. He just uses these facts to demonstrate both sides and then states that one of them

is right and the other one is not because the facts don’t line up. Blow made a weak

attempt at using Pathos to foster opinions but he mostly just used facts and sometimes

facts can be conflicting and not necessarily appeal to one side and it just makes you start

thinking more. After reading this article I see that Blow is blaming congress for all the

issues when maybe there are others to blame but he does not even think of that he just

jumps to conclusions and starts using Congress as a scapegoat. Throughout his whole

article he was being cowardly and hiding behind weak statistics. It feels as though the

article has had no affect on me other than to make me think more about the argument on

gun control and want to look further into the subject. This very well could have been

Blow’s intention. He may have written this to just raise awareness of the subject and if

that was his intent then he did a good job of doing so.

rhetorical analysis final revision

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