Persuasive Articles About Gun Control

Persuasive articles about Gun Control

Persuading an audience can be done in several different fashions, one of which is Hugh Rank’s Model of Persuasion. Rank’s model states that two major strategies are used to achieve the particular goal of persuasion. These strategies are nicely set into two main schemas; the first method is to exaggerate an aspect of something, known as “intensify.” While the second is to discredit it, which is referred to as “downplay.” Al Franken, Jeffrey Snyder, Harlan Ellison, and George Will, have all written persuasive articles about gun control.

In reading all of the various articles on gun control by authors, I found George F. Will’s The Last Word to be the most persuasive. Will wrote his piece about gun control in response to Mr. Snyder’s piece which both suggested and condoned gun use. The reason Will’s response and stance on gun control was so powerful was because he was able to incorporate quotations from Snyder’s article and rebut them with factual and logical information. Will used Rank’s model of persuasion to downplay Snyder’s arguments, and refuted them with his own facts which he intensified to an extent. Will did however take five pages to build his argument for the regulation of guns, and quoted Snyder too frequently, a more succinct and economical approach would have made this article that much more persuasive.

Second place for the most persuasive piece on gun control is Al Franken’s Phil Gramm, Gun Lover, who was in favor of limiting the use of guns. His piece is very precise at two pages and uses Rank’s model to intensify a number of worldwide fatalities caused by guns. Franken was also able to downplay the usefulness of a firearm by including a series of sarcastic tips for tragedy in a home. For example, “1. Keep the gun loaded… 2. Put the gun in an unlocked drawer... 3. Rest assured.”1 Where Franken’s article comes up short is the use of hypothetical numbers to exaggerate and intensify the deadliness of guns. His sarcasm adds diversity to his piece, but should be used sparingly. Franken’s conclusion causes his argument to lose its effectiveness, after building his case it just seems ridiculous and out of place.

The least persuasive essay out of the four was Harlan Ellison’s An Edge in My Voice.