SWA #5

“Shootings” by Adam Gopnik is an example of a rhetorical argument used in society. “Shootings” was written shortly after the disaster at Virginia Tech this past spring for the New Yorker magazine. This article provides the reader with personal suggestions of what should be done in the United States to help limit these types of tragedies. The main idea of this piece is that gun regulation should become stricter. Gopnik argues that if the gun control laws had made it more difficult for Cho to obtain these weapons the outcome would not have been as grave in Blacksburg.
The targeted audience for this piece was the readers of the New Yorker magazine. While this is a very large target audience some of the audience can be swayed one way or another depending on the writing. Gopnik writes it so as to be emotionally moving and to provide logical ideas.
Adam Gopnik is the author of this piece. He obviously feels very strongly about the situation that occurred at V.T. He also does not mind challenging the people that run the government and how the situation was handled. One constraint that Gopnik might experience could be his personal experience. If Gopnik had a friend or family member involved he might feel much more strongly about the situation than if he was less involved. Another constraint could be being involved with a group that is pro gun control. This would cause Gopnik to push that idea more than other solutions. The exigence in this piece was the tragedy of the V.T. shooting that Gopnik believes might not have been as bad if gun control was stricter. Before reading this article I considered the selling of guns in the US to be very strict but after reading this I know otherwise. Gopnik managed to convince me that run control should be stricter so that more shootings do not occur with the ease of which this one seemed to happen.