Script
Hi, my name is Shaky’ra Holmes and welcome to “Shaky’ra Talks.” I am from Folkston, GA and a freshman at the College of Coastal Georgia in Brunswick where I am an aspiring nurse. My mother is a Deputy Sheriff and I am all too aware of the gun violence crisis in American cities.
Gun Violence surges in 2020
The authors of this article all serve as mayors of metropolitan areas. The article was written due to the increasing rate of gun violence that cities across the country are experiencing. The information presented was gathered and shared at a virtual conference attended by hundreds of mayors at the US Conference of Mayors held January 2020. The authors use rhetorical devices as a means of strengthening their call for gun control. I will show how their use of logos and pathos to speak directly to their intended audience, the Biden Administration and their constituents, to strengthen their call for gun control. They implore the government to not focus solely on Covid 19 while continuing to ignore the other major issue facing American cities, Gun Control.
The authors use pathos throughout this article in order to not overwhelm the intended audience with convoluted statistics. The authors focused on the emotional and social toll that gun violence has had on each of their cities. The authors repeatedly attached gun violence to the emotions of the covid 19 pandemic. The article states “As cities battled the deadly pandemic in 2020 a survey of over 125 diverse police agencies found that 57% of them saw upticks in firearm homicides and nearly 70% saw upticks in nonfatal shootings.” They go on to say that many cities are facing two public health issues at the same time, Covid 19 and gun violence, the authors stress while reducing the harm of the pandemic and emphasis must be placed on saving lives from gun violence. The authors call to action places a focus on Black and Latino communities. The article states “… we can’t continue to turn a blind eye to Black and Latino communities in cities that are bearing the brunt of this daily gun violence .”
The authors use logos in explaining what the federal government could do to help curve the increase of gun violence was particularly pertinent. The mayors state that the federal government can’t continue to underfund evidence-based intervention programs. It goes on to mention local intervention programs and hospital based intervention programs. They state that these programs would be used to send out messengers into local communities to de-escalate violence and prevent retaliatory violence from gunshot victims in local hospitals.
My Rhetorical Analysis shows that the authors used pathos and logos to show that in 2020 three things happened, a Covid 19 pandemic, an increase in gun violence across American cities, and a federal response to Covid 19. What wasn’t or what was poorly addressed was a response to gun violence. Due to the emotion attached to Covid 19, they took particular care to attach gun violence to the pandemic. Their use of rhetorical devices helped the authors address their constituents and the federal government for a respectful yet immediate and emotional call to action. I find that this idea was highlighted the most with the following statement from their article posted on the CNN Opinion Board. They write “Reducing the harm of the pandemic must also include saving lives from gun violence.”
Fischer, Garcetti, Lightfoot, and Brandon Scott “Opinion: Gun Violence Crisis in America’s Cities” CNN; 17th Feburary 2021. https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/17/opinions/gun-violence-covid-government-fischer-garcetti-lightfoot-scott/index.html Accessed 18th Feburary 2021.