Elizabeth Roden and Shay Pencola

Prof. Peter Blair

Assignment #2
October 3, 2014
Exposing The Real Issue
Following the tragedy of Sandy Hook in 2012, gun control has become a hot debate. The
big question is: should guns be strictly regulated? Some say no; guns are only as dangerous as
the people who wield them. Others say yes, that the possession of arms will lead to violence,
destruction, and murder. Many people believe in their second amendment right, however after
the school shooting incident, they now agree with the proposal that guns should be regulated. A
few months after the Sandy Hook incident, President Obama gave his State of the Union
Address, with last quarter of his speech speaking of the issue about guns. In response to Obama's
speech, Wayne Lapierre wrote an article that suggests that President Obama is plotting to dispose
of arms and doesn't care enough about the children of America. Lapierre uses slippery slope,
exaggeration, hasty generalization, ad hominem, and creating false needs in his response to
create the illusion of the government's intentions: to terminate the second amendment.
Slippery slope, by definition, is a tactic used to scare people into thinking that if we allow
one thing to happen, then it will snowball effect into something far worse. (Wood par. 16)
Lapierre uses this fallacy in his response: if re-elected, President Obama would set about
dismantling the Second Amendment. That, with no more elections to worry about, the president
would wait for the right political opportunity to exploit and launch the most aggressive campaign
in the history to destroy our rights. (Lapierre par. 11) So, by re-electing Obama, we are
supposedly setting ourselves up to be stripped of our rights. Then, the problem becomes bigger

and bigger as it rolls down the hill to the most aggressive campaign in history. (Lapierre par.
11) The campaign that Lapierre speaks of could imply a war campaign. So not only are our
rights being taken away from us, but we are escalating to a war against arms.
This excerpt from Lapierre's response is exaggerated. Refer back to the president would
wait for the right political opportunity to exploit and launch the most aggressive campaign in
history to destroy our rights. (Lapierre par. 11) If this is the most aggressive campaign in
history, then why does President Obama make the people know this is not about dismantling the
Second Amendment, but reforming it? He mentions background checks and prevent anyone
from buying guns for resale to criminals in his speech (Obama par. 81). Background checks to
check for criminals and mentally unstable people, so they cannot get their hands on a gun. That
does wonders for our safety. Not to mention that he stated, getting weapons of war and mass
ammunition magazine off our street (Obama par. 81). This does not include everyday handguns
for personal protection. This means banning assault rifles, and limiting ammunition
magazines to 10 rounds (Now Is The Time par. 13). There is not one person who is not going to
war that needs an assault rifle for everyday personal protection. These are forms of slippery
slope because Lapierre implies that Obama is plotting to wipe out ammunition for good, leaving
the country with no self-defense and our children unsafe. President Obama doesn't strip us of our
rights by proposing these laws, he just reforms the amendment to make gun laws reasonable for
our safety. The exaggeration that Lapierre uses creates the illusion that the President is up to
something far worse than what he has proposed.
Ad Hominem directs attention away from the issue and toward the person. (Wood par.
24) Lapierre takes a quote used by Obama and attacks him by manipulating the phrase into his
own. The phrase nothing else matters is found in Lapierre's response six times. First,

reiterating President Obama's Sandy Hook remark: 'if we are not getting the need to keep our
children safe, then nothing else matters.' Nothing else matters. (Lapierre par. 3). Lapierre then
states: When nothing else matters to every parent in America President Obama had nothing
to say about school security. And nothing he's proposed has anything to do with protecting one
child in any school. (Lapierre par. 10) It seems that he is now mocking Obama because first
Obama says that keeping the children safe is more important than anything else, and then he says
that Obama had nothing to say in his speech about school safety. Lapierre then makes his final
point at the end of his response by stating: When it comes to keeping our kids safe at school,
nothing else matters. He seems to be making this point by putting a meaning behind the words
that Obama used meaninglessly. Obama stated in his speech, modern schools worthy of our
children (Obama par. 34), and then continues to speak of gun control following the Newton
incident. It is not completely void of school safety, because controlling guns is a big part of it.
Also, he proposed providing incentives for schools to hire resource officers (Now Is The Time
par. 37), put up to 1,000 new school resource officers and counselors on the job (Now Is The
Time par. 38), and help schools develop and implement emergency plans (Now Is The Time
par. 42) If Obama's words were meaningless, there wouldn't be proposals for the children's
safety, and the public's safety.
Hasty Generalization: a jump to conclusions based on few examples (Wood par.9). In
Response to the State of the Union Address by Wayne Lapierre we find a huge hasty
generalization - They only care about their decades-old gun control agenda (Lapierre par.
14) How do we know this? Because Obama didnt address the gun control issue the way
Lapierre wanted him to? The way Lapierre twists the State of the Union into being something
negative towards the safety of our children in schools? We have nothing to base this statement

on, this is just Lapierres opinion tearing down Obama; which could also be an Ad Hominemattacking the man instead of the facts.
Another fallacy found would be Creating False Needs: appealing to what people value (Wood
par. 17). Lapierre states that Its not about keeping our kids safe at school. That wasnt even
mentioned in the presidents speech. (Lapierre par. 14) Isnt restricting the amount of assault
rifles and weapons of mass destruction off the street keeping our children safe? Obama never
once mentioned that guns would be completely wiped out, he wanted to restrict the larger more
dangerous weapons out of communities. Lapierres statement is basically telling parents that
Obama doesnt really care about the safety of children in schools, which is completely false;
creating a false need. Creating this False Need pulls at Americas heartstrings saying that our
president doesnt care about our childrens safety; when in all reality this is his main point in his
speech. Lapierre did a very good job playing the emotional card when it came to talking about
the children.
Also in this article Lapierre talks about background checks and how The only people who will
be checked are law-abiding, normal, sane, decent Americans. (Lapierre par. 20) This may be
true but 81 percent of Americans are for background checks for anyone purchasing a gun
(People-Press par. 4). Proving that even legal gun holders are okay with Obamas Universal
Background Checks. Even the sane, decent Americans can hurt someone with a gun; it
doesnt take a criminal or mentally ill person to commit a crime.
Lapierres response to Obamas State of the Union Address has many fallacies that do not help
his argument against Obamas claims about gun control and safety in schools. Slippery slope,
hasty generalizations, ad hominem, and creating false needs are just a few that we expanded on
to shine a light on Lapierres shadiness. The main author we used to help us find these fallacies

was Wood, we based our fallacy findings on the fallacies she had written about. These fallacies
we used can be put against many other political essays and/or speeches; however, there are more
than just the fallacies we listed in this paper. Many political statements along with rebuttal
letters/articles will include many fallacies due to the subject of the argument when it comes to
politics.

Works Cited

"Broad Support for Renewed Background Checks Bill, Skepticism about Its Chances." Pew
Research Center for the People and the Press RSS. Pew Research Center, 23 May 2013.
Web. 8 Oct. 2014. <http://www.people-press.org/2013/05/23/broad-support-for-renewedbackground-checks-bill-skepticism-about-its-chances/>.
Lapierre, Wayne. "Response to State of the Union Address." NRA. 14 Feb. 2013. Web. 8 Oct.
2014. <http://home.nra.org/>.
"Now Is The Time." The White House. The White House, 16 Jan. 2013. Web. 8 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/wh_now_is_the_time_full.pdf>
Obama, Barack. "Remarks by the President in the State of the Union Address." The White
House. The White House, 12 Feb. 2013. Web. 8 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/02/12/remarks-president-state-unionaddress>.
.Wood, Nancy. "How to Recognize Fallacies." Essentials of Argument. Print.