engl 102 paper

ENG 102

Professor Cave

Due 6/30/2026

Gun Control Article Dissection

“American life and human depravity don’t always bend to government dictates” (The Editorial Board, 2017). That is the claim made in this article by The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board. The board posits the thesis that gun control laws have little effect on mass shootings, however, this opinion is only partially correct. The majority of the article is correct with plentiful logos support for their arguments, but they make one mistake with facts regarding the potential effectiveness of suppressers in a mass shooting situation, a second in stating that background checks cannot effectively reduce gun violence, and they rely on pathos arguments for some of their points which weakens the academic viability of their piece.

Summary

The article opens by describing the events surrounding the October 1, 2017 shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada. In the attack, Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd from an elevated position, killing many, and injuring many more. It then describes the weapons the shooter, Paddock, used in his attack, including several AR-15 style rifles equipped with bump-stocks. The article then downplays claims that bump stocks can be dangerous and describes how Paddock was able to buy his guns legally due to having no prior criminal record. The article then mentions a quote from Hillary Clinton regarding the shooting in which she claims the shooting could have been much worse had Paddock had access to suppressers for his weapons. The article disagrees with this claim. Further references are made towards the gun ownership traditions of this country and the protections that the constitution provides for the owners of firearms. The editorial board then closes the article by suggesting that all is not in vain and that use of modern data driven threat analysis, an expansion of available mental health resources, and improvements to law enforcement response time can do more than gun control.

Analysis

The appeals of this article contain logos and pathos. There are no ethos appeals, the authors do not identify themselves, let alone rely on their credentials. In terms of logos, the article cites several sources and provides numbers to back up all of its assertations. In terms of pathos, the article uses loaded language, such as “so-called” and “red herring” (The Editorial Board, 2017). A particularly obvious use of pathos is this statement from the introductory paragraph of the article: “progressives believe that every human problem can be solved with a policy tweak. A ban here, a background check there, and, voila, no more mass shootings” (The Editorial Board, 2017). In addition to lumping all progressives into one homogenous group, which fosters an us-vs-them mentality; this quote uses almost satirical language, implying that the authors believe the progressive solution to be laughable.

The article for the most parts avoids using logical fallacies. However, it does use a couple of appeals to tradition by referencing America’s long-standing gun culture, as well as the protections enshrined by the constitution. Referencing these historical concepts without addressing how they remain relevant in modern society can be a potentially misleading tactic.

The essentials of the article’s thesis about the ineffectiveness of gun-control in America are accurate (Moorhouse & Wanner, 2006). But there is one point in which the authors draw outright false conclusions. They refer to an interview in which Hillary Clinton said that the attack would have been more serious if Paddock had been able to legally acquire suppressers for his weapons. They disagree with Clinton’s claim, saying that suppressers would not have lowered the volume of the shots enough to make them difficult to hear. This is not correct. The average concert has a volume of 120-129 decibels (Healthwise Staff, 2018). An unsuppressed AR-15 averages around 165 decibels, while a suppressed AR-15 averages around 130-140 decibels (Silvers, 2005). If the sources of the sounds were at the same distance the gunshots would still be noticeably audible, but firing from his distant, elevated position (32nd floor), the sounds of his gunshots had they been suppressed would have been less immediately obvious, with approximately 40-50 decibels lost to distance (Decibels and Distance, n.d.). This would result in a decibel level of approximately 80-100 decibels for the gunfire, competing with 120-129 decibels for the concert.

Lastly, the authors make the claim that even though they are not against the passing of additional background check laws, they do not believe that such laws would make a significant difference in reducing gun violence. In their article Effects of Policies Designed to Keep Firearms from High-Risk Individuals, Daniel Webster and Garen Wintemute conclude that restricting the ability to access firearms from certain populations such as those with restraining orders for domestic violence and violent misdemeanors has a positive effect on the reduction of gun violence, and can, in fact, reduce occurrences of firearms falling into the hands of crimminals (Webster & Wintemute, 2015). This is directly counter to the claims made by the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal in their article.

Response

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board on the whole conveys their message fairly well. They attempt to back up all their claims with numbers and/or citations and, with the exception of one appeal to tradition, avoid making logical fallacies. The writers do a good job influencing their readers and provide several alternatives to gun control for people to pursue for reducing the frequency of mass shootings. The only suggestion this author would make to the editorial board would be to double check all of their claims and only use claims they can back up, because a couple of factual mistakes in one argument can undermine credibility elsewhere in the minds of readers. Accurate though the majority of this article is, the occasional inaccuracies cast doubt on the motives of the authors, raising the possibility that they are deliberately attempting to mislead their audience. With the inaccuracies in the article, combined with the slant provided by the pathos arguments, this article is far too opinionated to be cited for an academic paper.

Conclusion

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In the article “The Gun Control Mirage”, the authors make the claim that gun control would have done little to reduce the carnage caused by Paddock. This claim is somewhat accurate and is supported with logos and pathos through the citing of sources and provided evidence, and the loaded language used in some parts of the article. However, they make a couple factual errors with regards to the effectiveness of suppressers and the effectiveness of background checks that threatens to undermine their credibility.

References

Decibels and distance. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.mcsquared.com/dbframe.htm

The Editorial Board. (2017, October 4). The gun control mirage; more guns won’t stop mass shootings by determined killers. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.proxy.cityu.edu/news/docview/1946704514/AE562EB35FFE4F36PQ/2?accountid=1230

Healthwise Staff. (2018, October 21). Harmful noise levels. My Health Alberta. Retrieved from https://myhealth.alberta.ca/health/Pages/conditions.aspx?hwid=tf4173

Moorhouse, J. C., & Wanner, B. (2006, January). Does gun control reduce crime or does crime increase gun control? Cato Journal, 26(1), 103-124. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.proxy.cityu.edu/news/docview/60139766/9B18B9DF83F34149PQ/1?accountid=1230

Silvers, R. (2005). Results. Silencertalk. Retrieved from http://www.silencertalk.com/results.htm

Webster, D. W., & Wintemute, G. J. (2015, March). Effects of policies designed to keep firearms from high-risk individuals. Annual Review of Public Health, 36, 21-37. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.proxy.cityu.edu/news/docview/1676368603/8461B860C874D49PQ/6?accountid=1230